Cursed Flowers
by tavelion
Summary: Your average retelling of Lord of the Flies; however, this time some alternate events occur, and a certain someone doesn't meet his phosphorescent death. Contains the forbidden Ralph x Simon. Rated M for later chapters (you know the drill; pig killing, fire). [Incomplete]
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1: When the Weather Was Nice_

The sky was warm and the weather was pleasant, and the sand absorbed its heat, transforming it into a consopite. If one were to lay upon it, it would be easy to understand, possibly, why he had been lying there for so long. He assumed that he had the chills of the tide lapping gently against his legs what was eventually roused him from his unconsciousness. When he tried to move, his muscles seemed hesitant to cooperate at first-but they were quickly soothed by the shade of the palm fronds swaying slowly above him and the wind that brushed over his skin every now and then.

His rise from the beach was slow. He was still groggy and confused about the circumstances; his school sweater was still on his body, his hair was still swept-but if that was the case, then why was he not at school? He tried to recall the last thing he'd done before ending up on the sand beneath him, but all he could remember was the interior of an aircraft, and then his memory seemed to struggle to draw anything more.

Picking himself up, he steadied himself on his legs and dusted off some sand clinging to his sweater sleeves, before looking up at the landscape before him. The fair-haired boy had never quite seen something like what was before him-the sandy earth was caked by layers of luscious grass, and blanketed on top of that was mats of undergrowth entangled among taller, more advantageous plants. Intermixed with the shrubs and the bushes that coiled around each other and other various plants were little, bright flowers, mostly white; but he was able to spot a cluster of pink ones, and a few standalones of other various colors, which multiple insects delighted upon. To add to the chaotic growths, the tree trunks of palm trees sprang from the ground, a beautiful, golden-brown color, their fronds flapping freely, slowly, in the short bursts of wind that passed the area every now and then. However the palm trees only managed to extend their reaches for what must have been around ten or so feet back into the forest-for then they became more scarce, and tamer, indistinguishable-type trees overpowered them and reigned victorious over the forest.

One of the things that caught his eye the most was what as positioned above the canopy. A sylvan mountain, similarly enveloped in foliage, stood proud against the blue horizon. In spots where the leaves managed to not encase the mountain, the fair boy caught sight of sheer, large faces of red and gray rock. If one were to climb it, he guessed that either the parts of the mountain he could not see were hopefully more of a gradual slope, and that those would have to be taken instead, or one would have to brave the patches of steepness.

He narrowed his eyes, a sense of both fear and excitement assaulting him. He could not, for the life of him, determine where he was. He longed to return home, to the garden-this place vaguely reminded him of it, but never had the flora been so vibrant and so wild there. However, he forced himself to internally shrug off these feelings and continue onwards. His hope was high for an adult to be around to tell him what was going on. He might not remember what happened because he just still felt a little tired. That must have been it, and then he must have fallen asleep by accident, and then he would just ask a grown-up how to get home.

He had planned to go down the shoreline, but he felt almost as if something was calling him to the jungle, something he could not quite understand. Driven by this instinct, and without anything else to do, he gave in and began to trudge his way through the thicket. It wasn't hard at first, or at least not as hard as he thought it'd be. Certainly the incessant foliage continually slapping him in the face was annoying, but eventually he got used to the pattern of raising his arm to push it back just enough for him to get through. As he continued, though, and the patches of sunlight that fell to the ground became less frequent, and the plants and creepers seemed to try to bring him into their twisted complexions, and the darkness seemed to try and consume him, he soon became aware of how alone he was. He thought it strange that he had not encountered anyone so far, let alone his targeted demographic-the adults. His heart sunk at the thought that perhaps he truly _was_ alone.

"Hey!" a voice called out, from somewhere in the depths of the shadows. "Hold up a minute!"

Although his interest piqued and his hope rose a little, the vague disappointment set in at the realization that the voice belonged to just another boy, picking himself out of the trees. In the darkness, it was hard to get a proper look at his newfound companion. All he could really see was that he was somewhat weighty and wore spectacles that flashed in the eerie darkness, losing their shine whenever his head looked at the ground.

"Where's the man with the megaphone? Have you seen him?"

The fair boy shook his head, suddenly losing interest in this conversation. He'd decided it'd be better to look for the man rather than stand idly by and wait for the other kid to follow him, but he waited for a moment longer so the boy could stand in front of him, still panting and gasping from what he could only deduce was a long trek through the jungle himself.

"Me either," he continued, taking the specs off his face and rubbing the left lens on a part of his windbreaker in one practiced motion. "Then have you seen anyone else? The pilot, maybe?"

Once more the fair boy shook his head 'no'. If he had seen them at all, then he certainly wouldn't be talking to this kid right now. Beginning to further confirm his assumption that this talk was useless, he started away back into the jungle, this time walking to his left so he could travel across it horizontally.

"Wait," a pant came from behind him, and then the crushing of flora as the other boy began to catch up, keeping pace with the fair boy but still trudging along behind him. "What's your name?"

"Ralph," he answered simply, turning around to give him a vague, polite smile before continuing his walk. Admittedly, he was not particularly interested in learning the other boy's name, so he just didn't ask, disappointing him, which was signified by a quiet sigh. He brought a hand up to shove some more leaves out of his way, continuing down the imaginary trail. The earth beneath him was hard to traverse in his shoes-its height fluctuated up and down, ensuring that no step had the same elevation as the last, making the walk a bit disorienting. Creatures fluttered under the foliage as he passed-he caught sight of an exotic bird, marked with black and blue and red, which flew away after he disturbed a bush he passed by. One thing that was a constant, though, and which Ralph doubted he could also make flee were the insects that were creating the constant humming that seemed to be omnipresent throughout the jungle. He hadn't taken notice of it before, and once he did it was almost irritating; so he chose to focus on the path ahead of him instead, which seemed to wind on for quite a while.

"I think this is an island," the now-familiar voice chimed once more. "I was on the beach, and there was nothin' but water for miles. You think there's any grown-ups around here?"

Ignoring his statement since he was now interested in the abrupt stop in the path, he suddenly raced forward. At the end he could see a little cove, and almost instantaneously Ralph was taken by it. He could hear the cries of indignance from behind himself, but his eagerness to see the geography ahead overrode any guilt he would have had of leaving him behind.

Stepping out onto the sand, he was even more pleased to find that the cove secreted a lagoon. The view was, like the first one that he had seen upon pulling himself to his feet on the island, something only akin to a landscape he'd only read about. The sand was crystalline and white, only disturbed by the occasional print of a gull or a twig that had broken off from one of the palm trees that loomed over the area and gave it shade. Gray rocks mixed with the roots of trees sheltered the lagoon, cooling the water and protecting it from the tropical sun. The lagoon waters themselves were a forest green-not really murky by any stretch of the imagination, but also not clear, as the bottom was not seen from all angles. Dapples of sunlight were clearly visible on the surface, sometimes passing over the occasional leaf and flower bud that bobbed and floated in the ripples.

Ralph quickly made his way over to the edge, hardly bothering to test the temperature of the water before ridding himself of his school sweater and putting it on the sand. He figured that, if he couldn't seem to find an adult in a matter of minutes, then it was time to have a swim. He'd always loved that anyways; his father had taken him to swimming classes when he was younger, and he'd taken every opportunity he had to swim since.

"Hold on!" the boy's voice called again, and just as Ralph finished removing his undershirt and shoes, the pants were behind him again. "You can't just go running off like that! I can't hardly run, on account of my asthma."

"Ass-mar?"

"That's right!" he proclaimed, coming off as almost proud. "Can't keep my breath. Runnin' isn't for me. So, please," he finished, wiping his specs off on his windbreaker again.

Ralph shrugged, and added another vague smile. "No promises. Sucks to your ass-mar."

His companion came over next to him and sat by his side in the sand, originally to rest, but it simultaneously served as a silent signal for Ralph to sit as well. He did so, and he liked the feeling of the warmth covering his whole body, like a sunbath. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and rested his elbows on his knees, trying to savor the feeling of absolute warmth. Next to him, his friend scanned over his bare golden torso critically, and sighed, thinking for a moment before shedding his windbreaker.

"Look, out there," the boy with the glasses said, pointing a finger out at the open ocean before letting his arm fall on his leg. "I'm sure of it, this 's probably an island. See, the reef out there. I ain't ever seen a reef anywhere but an island."

Ralph raised his head in preparation for interaction, screwing up his face against the vivid light and shifting his arms. "Maybe. Do you think that there are others here?"

"It'd take us a long time to look. Jungle's so dark."

Ralph scrunched up his face further and relaxed it. He decided, after all, that he should learn this boy's name, if they were to take the time to look for potential others-that way, if he got lost, he could call out to him in the forest.

"Say, what's your name?"

The question seemed to catch him slightly off-guard, but at the same time it seemed to excite him. Then, he let out a sigh and it seemed the excitement turned into something else.

"Well, as long as you don't call me what they did at school, I don't care what you think my name is."

Now he was interested. "What'd they call you at school?"

There was an embarrassed pause for a moment, and another one of his signature sighs, this time taking on the tone of reluctance. Ralph strained his hearing, almost afraid that he'd miss the nickname if he made any sudden noise.

"They used to call me Piggy."

Everything about the name caused Ralph to erupt in a fit of laughter, throwing himself down onto the sand, muffling his laughs briefly before he turned his head to the side. Piggy sighed through his nose and looked away, the pinkness of embarrassment dusting his cheeks.

"Piggy!" he cried out, and was promptly cut off by another sharp chuckle. "Oh, Piggy!"

"Hey! It's not…" Piggy replied, fumbling with his hands which now bore slickness on their palms, and he tore absently at a piece of his undershirt. "Don't tell the others, please."

Ralph gasped for breath as the hilarity slowly began to wear off, but his grin was still ever present. He decided to express more of his newfound energy, and added his pants and socks to the discarded pile of clothing, plunging himself into the lagoon. The water, just like everything else, was warm, and vaguely reminded him of a spring or a bath. It too served as a consopite, and gradually his excited strokes in the water slowed until he laid sleepily against the lulling waves, so that when Piggy next spoke his voice seemed distant.

"Come on! We ain't got no time to swim, Ralph," he huffed, still annoyed in the aftermath of his humiliation but unable to make the other boy face consequences for it. "I'm sure of it now! We can't pretend forever. Ralph, there aren't any grown-ups here. You see? You and me, we're all alone."

Those words sparked something inside the fair boy, and his eyes snapped open with realization. That was probably true. If an adult had heard them speaking, then certainly they would have already came over and asked them something mundane, like an inquiry as to why they weren't working. Although the fact worried him, it excited him to no end, and all traces of sleep were banished from his body as he hauled his wet body back onto the sand, ridding the grains of dry sand from his legs by washing them off in the water. He grinned with an air of mischievousness and euphoria.

"No grown-ups," he said incessantly, turning his head in Piggy's direction once more. "No grown-ups! That means we can do whatever we want!"

To further demonstrate his enthusiasm, he sprang up and stood on his head in one fluid motion, flinging himself quickly back to his feet and cartwheeling in the water, splashing about. He stopped, looked at Piggy, and laughed again, seeing the look of discontentment and worry locked on his face.

"What, what? Aren't you excited?"

Piggy fumbled with his hands and looked down at the ground.

"No one knows we are here."

Ralph cocked his head, confused. That didn't mean that no one ever _would_ know that they were there, didn't it? As the seeds of worry began to plant themselves into his own heart, he looked for confirmation in his friend.

"But someone will know. Like my dad. He works in the navy. He'll come and pick us up, if this is an island."

"But _how_ will he know?"

"Well, they'll tell him at the airport when he'll ask about us."

"No, no. Didn't you hear what the pilot said? They're dead, Ralph. There ain't no one to tell anyone about us. Besides-they only knew where we were going to. They had no idea about where we are now, because this island wasn't a part of the plan." He gulped nervously, and bowed his head again, as if making eye contact while saying the next phrase made the idea even scarier.

"We may stay here till we die."

That certainly snapped Ralph out of his excitement, and his smile was replaced with a frown. His muscles no longer withheld the energy to play or swim. His gaze fell onto his clothes, and he was overpowered by the desire to wear them again, and so he did. He hurriedly pulled on his socks, and then his undershirt, and then his pants and sweater and socks. Mimicking his mannerisms, Piggy too slipped on his windbreaker again, somehow a little disappointed that he didn't also get to swim in the lagoon, although he knew subconsciously that there was plenty of time for that.

Trying to think of further action, Piggy brought up references to their old conversation about the potential others on the island.

"Ralph, remember what I said, about the others? We need something to call them! So we don't have to look all over that darn jungle."

Ralph's frown deepened at the reminder and he forced himself to think. He'd never had to do such a thing, and he'd never been taught how to do it. He wondered if his voice would be loud enough to carry across the whole island, or if not, even just a small part of it, enough for at least _someone _to hear. But his thoughts ceased when he caught sight of something shimmering in the water, a stark white against the watery sand of a small alcove of water, separate from the lagoon itself so one could see the bottom of the pool.

Nodding at the white object, Ralph got up and began to walk towards it without a second thought. The closer he got, the more details about it he could pick out-the object was clearly some sort of large, beautiful shell, white with stripes of cream and gold, and on the interior he could see a deep pink color seep onto the outermost edges of its interior. It was topped off with dull spikes, watered down by time spent in the waves. He picked it out of the water, and ran his fingertips reverently over its surface. Behind him, Ralph could hear Piggy shuffle over to examine whatever object he was holding, and then came a gasp.

"It's a conch!" he exclaimed, and Ralph handed the conch over to him to hold, sensing he knew more about the object than he. "I used to know someone that could blow this-had it on his back garden wall, I remember." For a moment he paused, thinking and staring down at the object, before he smiled and his eyes sparkled with an idea. "This is what we can use! We'll call them with this, Ralph!"

The conch was shoved back into Ralph's hands, and his eyes flickered between Piggy and the conch, unsure of what to do. Realizing this, Piggy started again, still smiling with utter glee at his idea. "Right there-see there, at the top? You blow it there, and then-_sheeachow!_ The noise'll get their attention for sure!"

Nodding and beginning to get an idea of what he had to do, he brought the top of the conch, which had a small, visible hole drilled into it by the harshness of erosion, to his lips, and tried to blow into it. It vaguely reminded him of the musicians he'd seen when he went to a concert begrudgingly, although the sound he produced was exactly the opposite of what they had made. It was a low, pathetic sputtering noise, and it was Piggy's turn to chuckle at him. He put a hand to his abdomen, to demonstrate.

"You gotta get the air from down here. And it's gotta be a real strong amount."

Understanding once more, he went for his second attempt, drawing a somewhat surprised jump from Piggy as his try worked and a long, deep, harsh note rang out throughout the area. Some colorful birds chirruped and took off into the sky, as if trying to escape the noise. Over the noise Ralph could faintly hear Piggy proclaim something along the lines of "Just like that!", but otherwise it seemed that all sounds were overridden by the expansive note, and it took so much of Ralph's power that he had to take the object away from his lips to get some much-needed air.

Some shuffling noises were heard in the deep foliage of the jungle, and Ralph turned his attention to a small bit of geography to his right-a gray, rocky platform, shielded by trees and providing respite from the heat. Now that his skin was beginning to tire of the warmth and it became uncomfortable, he decided to take advantage of this, and muttering some warning to Piggy, he ran over to the platform, desperate to get out of the heat, and relinquished under the fronds, clambering atop the tallest part of the rock. Piggy awkwardly took his position at the side of the rock.

"We ought to get their names. Here, that'll be my job."

Slowly but surely, other boys made their way onto the platform as well, admiring Ralph in a certain awe and respect. Most of them were smaller and weaker than him, obviously younger than him by a couple years-the oldest could have been only eight. Piggy went around to each of them, asking their names and repeating them three times in order to remember before moving on to the next. They sat down in a scattered circle about the platform, similarly enjoying the cooling shade. There were only two boys that truly stuck out to Ralph, since they appeared to be around his age. Those were, of course, Sam and Eric, who he doubted that he'd be able to tell apart-the identification of which had already left him as soon as he looked away.

As they settled into the rocks and the vegetation that grew out of them, it seemed that all of those who were going to come to the assembly had made themselves present, and Piggy returned to stand in front of Ralph.

"Alright. I've got all their names. So-what now?"

Ralph opened his mouth to speak, but it closed once he caught the sound of singing in the distance. That was exactly the last sound he'd expected to hear; part of him wondered if it was just his imagination acting up on him, but as he squinted against the heat, it was proven to be true. Along the far side of the beach, a group of larger boys such as himself, Piggy, and Sam and Eric trudged towards them. Their leader seemed to have far more enthusiasm and energy than the rest of them, as they swayed about in the heat, intensified by their black cloaks and and black caps, pinned with silver-however, their leader's was topped off with a golden pin, and he seemed proud to own it.

However, while their steps certainly were not in order, their singing was fine for the most part. He didn't care much for learning the components of music, but he could identify some faulty notes, made in the delirium of the heat. The tune seemed quite generic to his ears, but proud-perhaps he'd heard it at a school assembly or when he'd walked by the music room on some odd occasion.

When the choir got close enough, the boys behind their leader stopped at different intervals, eyes all turned towards the ground, desperate for a rest. But it seemed that their leader cared not, for he stepped forward and focused critical, sunblind eyes on the shaded group. Ralph observed his features with equal scrutiny-his hair was a distinct red color, a particular trait that none of the other boys on the island seemed to possess. His skin was ginger-pale, and dotted with light brown freckles dominating most of his face. The color of his eyes were a sharp, light blue color, one not so dissimilar to Ralph's own, but they did not hold the gentleness that the latter's eyes did; rather, they were replaced with an intensity that the fair boy doubted he'd ever seen.

"Where's the man with the trumpet?" came his first inquiry, and his tone of voice did not betray the potency given off by his appearance. Sensing that he needed to speak up, Ralph replied.

"There's only me."

The choir leader squinted further into the darkness, his pupils now focused directly on Ralph's, judgemental more than ever. They scanned him over briefly, seeming to have decided something as they made direct eye contact once more.

"Well, we're going to need a leader around here," he muttered, mostly to himself, giving no time for anyone to make a reply before he whirled around to his group, and prepared to give another one of his stern orders.

"Choir! Stand straight."

Groaning, the boys begrudgingly stepped back into their places, still swaying underneath the intensity of the heat. In protest, one of them cried out, as Ralph caught sight of one of the boys in particular that looked ready to pass out.

"Please, Merridew, can't we-?"

Before his sentence could even finish, the boy that Ralph had been watching stumbled and fell to the ground like a deadweight, and instantly chatter arose as other members from the choir scrambled to lift him and place him in the shade. Merridew rolled his eyes and directed them over towards a spot, seemingly not caring whether or not any of the boys had objections to be made about that patch of shade being taken. Some of the smaller boys moved out of the way, clearly intimidated by the authority. Their awe was not inflicted by reverence like it was with Ralph-rather, it was simply from fear.

"Well-pick him up! There, place him in the shade over there-"

The ordeal was over as soon as it had finished, with the boy's cloak being removed to help cool him off and his cap being placed on top of it. He looked strangely peaceful in his unconscious state, contradictory to the chaotic chatter that he was blissfully unaware of. Ralph watched him for a moment, taking notice of the fact that he was smaller than the other members of the choir, and his hair longer and coarser than theirs. It was a thick, dark black, a companion to the almond-colored skin underneath it. His face was vivid despite the tranquility of his expression and the fact that his eyes were closed, leaving one crucial detail obscured, but Ralph supposed that he would always see them later.

"Don't worry about him. Simon's always falling over."

"He fell over at the last three concerts. This is no different."

His gaze was torn from the smaller boy when Merridew's voice rose above the insectoid ambience and the distant roaring of the waves.

"Alright! If there truly are no adults here," he began, casting a sideways glance at Ralph as if looking for absolute validation in his words, "then we will have to live here, as a society. And where there's a society, there's a leader." He paused to let his words carry and register across the crowd, which roused speculation and chatter once more.

Merridew let this continue for a few moments, before he decided to make another proclamation. "I ought to be chief. I already control the choir."

"Now hold up a minute!" Piggy's voice cried out, and suddenly the whole crowd had their attention on him. No one had anticipated him to speak in that moment, but he felt comforted by the presence of Ralph and thus mustered up the courage to speak, despite being painfully aware that Merridew's critical eyes were focused directly on him. "Ralph should be chief. He blew the conch. He called us all here, didn't he? Besides, we don't even hardly know your real name! Merridew's your last name, ain't it? We ain't calling anyone else by their last names, so you gotta follow the rules."

Merridew scoffed at this show of indignance. "Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew."

It seemed as if some of the choir boys were about to agree, but Piggy cut in again. "Well, you're Jack. You gotta play by the rules."

The redhead scoffed again, taking an intimidating step towards the shrinking figure of Piggy, and he smirked. "Oh, shut up, Fatty."

The crowd erupted into laughter, similar to Ralph when he had first heard of Piggy's name-and he found himself laughing along with them. Jack's intimidatory nature withheld a certain quality to it that drew Ralph to liking him; his leadership skills, as well, naturally increased his rank in the hierarchy of popularity. That was what led Ralph to breaking out without a second thought, even though he valued the company of his friend.

"His name's not Fatty, it's Piggy!"

"Piggy!"

"Oh, Piggy!"

Piggy drew back in embarrassment, hiding his face in the palms of his hands as the silvery bouts of laughter continued around him, his visage tinted a sharp pink. He felt betrayed, in a way; but he couldn't convey that now, not here, when he was constantly under the scrutiny of Jack and his judgemental eyes. He looked to Ralph for help, but hastily looked back down at the ground once he realized that he was with the crowd too. The group felt united by being able to share a single target for their joke-it felt as if, for the first time, they were all able to agree on something.

As the laughter died down once more, the matter at hand came into focus again, and Ralph decided to take Piggy's suggestion into account. Jack was certainly an equal to him in leadership, he decided, and he wouldn't feel comfortable in giving in to another person like that. That was, without a doubt, something he'd always hated; just the mere thought of submission to someone around his age or younger was enough to flare his stubbornness and rile some defiance.

"Well, maybe I'll be chief."

"A vote! Let's have a vote!"

"Alright, alright! Raise your hands on who you think should be chief."

The murmur swelled and fell when Jack spoke, and his cold stare settled on the crowd. They stared back at him, expectantly, for him to give the first question. He cast a challenging glance at Ralph before raising his voice to speak.

"Alright. Now who votes me for chief?"

The members of the choir raised their hands, the only exception being Simon, who seemed to just be on the edges of consciousness at the moment. The choir was outnumbered by the larger portion of the crowd, and Jack scowled as it became painfully obvious who the chief would be regardless of what happened next. As the hands of the voters fell, Jack turned to Ralph, signifying it was his turn.

"And who votes me for chief?"

Just as expected, the majority of the lot raised their hands, and Simon, still unsure of what was happening in his waking state, stared confused at the lot of them, his arm unmoving. Piggy watched Jack for a moment before raising his hand too, however it was a hesitant motion, as if afraid that he would face consequences from him for such a decision. Without a count, there was still no doubt about it-Ralph was chief, and it appeared that as Jack shrugged he was trying to shake off the irritation it brought him. If either of the boys shared a similarity, it was that they both did _not_ like to follow the orders of others, a factor that had led the choir master to his position in the first place.

"Alright. I'm chief."

Another cheering emanated from the crowd, secretly pleased that they would not have to follow such a seemingly hard-hearted leader. Some members of the choir remained silent, unable to find respect for the fair-haired boy in place of the choir leader they had known for so long. Ralph watched the redhead in a certain sympathy, understanding the pain of unacceptance. An idea came to him as he cradled the conch in thoughtfulness.

"Jack, you control the choir. You can choose what you want them to be."

Delighted by this, Jack returned the gesture with a pleased smile, ideas similarly flitting behind his pale eyes. "We'll need food. They'll be hunters, that's what."

Once more the cry of excitement came to light-and Ralph found his gaze directed at Simon again. It appeared placid for the most part, not able to empathize with the cheers that surrounded him; but there was also a look of deep-set uneasiness about his eyes, which the fair boy could now recognize to be a distinct brown, the color of dark chocolate, a commodity that Ralph found himself wishing he had at the moment. Simon's posture improved as his consciousness was fully achieved, and he seemed to get a real grasp on the situation, scanning over the people around him with an emotion that Ralph could not properly deduce. Their eyes met for a second, just before the contact broke and he was looking at the next boy, and then the next, and the next.

"We'll also need to explore this place, and see if it really is an island," Ralph continued, nodding with authority, taking center stage once again. "I'll take two people. One of them is Jack, and the other is-"

Immediately a mantra of begs to be the last person picked sounded from all around him, and Ralph knew he had to be careful in his decision. Briefly he considered Piggy-but he wanted this mission to be quick, and if his 'ass-mar' had anything to say about it, then he would probably lag behind them. He needed someone swift and light on their feet, someone inspective and observational, someone who he could trust. He looked upon the smaller boys, and deciding that they did not fit his specifications, he went to choir boys-but they, too, seemed far too foreboding for his likings at the moment, and from the dark caps they looked somewhat brooding. Finally, his eyes came to Simon, and although he passed out earlier, he looked much more comfortable and agile without the cloak and the hat weighing down on him.

Ralph spoke with finality. "And Simon."

Disappointment settled across the crowd, but it was quickly dispelled when the three boys grouped together. This time it was Jack's turn to instigate an announcement, and he stepped forward, brimming with pride and ebullience.

"We're going to see every last inch of this place! We'll be back before sunset, and then we'll decide on the rules. And there'll be lots," he added, smiling. "Lots of rules. We're not savages, after all. And when somebody breaks 'em-we'll decide what happens."

He was met with a roar of approval, most notably from the choir, who appeared to be his biggest supporters. In the midst of all this, Jack turned around and signalled for them to leave, Simon being the first to turn. His eagerness to explore was somewhat a shock to Ralph-even though he hadn't even heard one word from this boy, the small grin on his face was enough to tell him that he was a bit excited by the prospect of discovery, although for the exact reason Ralph had no idea. And so they began to clamber down the rocks and into the jungle that the fair-haired boy had been in not too long ago.

That was, until Ralph heard an indignant cry from behind him, and he lagged behind the two choir boys as they walked ahead for a little and stopped when they realized he wasn't there.

"Ralph! Wait!"

* * *

**So, that's it then, for this chapter at least. As always, any feedback is appreciated! Since I know that there are often plenty of stories like this, in the sort of "retelling" format that eventually get abandoned, I'll say it here and now-I swear that I will finish this, even if it takes me a long while. I actually already have some of the later chapters written, so that should be motivation enough for me. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again in chapter 2!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2: Decisions To Be Made_

"You told them! Ralph-I told you not to."

Ralph paused and turned around, standing halfway down the slope. He could feel the stares of Jack and Simon on his back, more focused than the gazes of the crowds of smaller boys still on the platform among Sam and Eric. However, among their stares there was only one intimidatory one-the one belonging to Piggy, who now adorned a more intense version of his upset expression. Ralph's previous smile became somewhat of a frown as he thought of a reply, but it seemed that Piggy had more to say.

"And not only that. I was with you before anyone else was. Why can't I come with you?"

Ralph broke eye contact and looked down at the ground, guiltily. "I'm sorry if you feel that way."

Piggy took another step forward, slight hostility still present in his tone. "Well, it's gone and done now and they already know, so there's no going back. But are you going to let me come with you?"

Ralph hurriedly thought of something. He did respect Piggy in a certain light, as a friend, but he felt a need to prove himself in a way, more specifically to Jack. It was painfully obvious by this point that Jack apparently despised Piggy for no real reason-he had not even the slightest implication where his hatred stemmed from, but he just couldn't shake the feeling of needing to impress him. Then, suddenly he got an idea-something to keep him on the plane of neutrality.

"We need you to get the choir's names while we're gone. And look for food. We'll try to look for some too, but for now just make sure you have everyone's names."

At first it looked like Piggy was going to say something else, but then he was somberly content with this idea and turned away, treading back up the small sandpath and resuming his position on the platform, still with his familiar disgruntled aura. Ralph watched him for a moment longer, beginning to regret his decision; but he became aware of the crunching of undergrowth and sand behind him, and turned to leave, seeing Jack impatiently making his way down and onto the next terrain.

Their exploration around the island was mostly spent in happiness and wonder at the new environment around them. Ralph, for one, was overjoyed at every new discovery they made, expressing this in more of his signature headstands and cartwheels, at a loss for other ways to convey his pure, genuine euphoria. Both Jack and Simon seemed amused by his antics, however only the former would join in with him at times, causing disturbances in the surrounding plants and sending creatures scampering away. When he wasn't being hyperactive, Ralph tried to get some words out of Simon to the best of his ability, but when he did speak his voice sounded quiet and just a little timid, but nonetheless grateful to have someone talking to him. This lack of speech added to the air of mysteriosity surrounding the boy-it made Ralph wonder if he was ever even able to be heard in the choir in the first place. As for Jack, he seemed to regard the smaller boy with a detached playfulness. He was, after all, still the choir leader, and he probably still viewed Simon as just another member of the group, without something still remarkable to be made about him.

In their explorations, they came across many more of the exotic species that Ralph had only caught glimpses of not too long ago, when he was still lost and clinging on to hope that he could find an adult, and get home safely without trouble. While Ralph admired then for their foreign beauty, he internally made note that Simon seemed somewhat fascinated by them. On one occasion they had passed by a stray, spotted lizard, which rested on a rock out in the sun. With one tentative hand, Simon had been able to give it a small stroke on its back before it realized it had made contact with another being, and it scurried away into the cracks of the boulders. He seemed disappointed to have scared it off, signified by a quiet 'oh', but he continued onwards with the other two boys regardless; his curious eyes still scanning every last crevice like they were trying to memorize every single area.

Of course, animals were not the only things that they came across. Jack and Ralph both were not as focused on the creatures as much as they were with trying to catalogue every important piece of geography they visited. One of the most important places they found was the stream, decided to be one of their main sources of water. They tried to climb up the mountain, but then decided that it would take too long, and stopped a little before halfway and turned back to explore the rest of the island.

As the group progressed to an upward slope that finally broke out of the canopy out of its peak, they continued up it in hopes of getting a proper view of the area and to confirm that it truly was an island after all. At the very top of the hill, the grass broke away into little, gray, squarish rocks, providing just enough leverage for one to get a good look of the landmass from one end to the other.

Ralph was the one to climb it first, followed by his two friends, who all had their suspicions confirmed at the same time. From up here, the wind was crisp on Ralph's skin, serving as a contrast to the harshness of the sun around him. He briefly scanned over the land back and forth.

"This is an island, all right."

Jack nodded in confirmation, crawling up to stand on the rock beside him so he was about level. "So we're all on our own." He paused to look between the fair-haired boy and the raven-haired one, before continuing. "We'll need food. Maybe we could eat those lizards if we can't find anything else."

Unexpectedly, another voice entered into the conversation, and both Ralph and Jack's attention was focused on Simon immediately. "No," he said simply, shuffling absently in the heat.

"What other food do we have?" the redhead retorted, stepping off the mass of rocks to return to the ground below them. His tone wasn't particularly belligerent like it had been; instead, it was just more of a question than anything.

Now made somewhat nervous, Simon looked downwards at the ground. "There's fruit around. I saw it on the trees. We can eat that."

Trying to help him out, Ralph decided to further validate Simon's point. "Right. The lizards will be too hard to catch, anyway. If we eat the fruit, it'll save us a lot of time and trouble."

Jack's eyes narrowed at him for a moment, his eyes flickering between him and the smaller boy as if he was about to go against their words, but a second later he nodded affirmingly. "I suppose so. If Simon couldn't catch one." He began to walk back down the hill. "Come on, then. We've got to tell the others."

By the time they got back to the platform, the sky was flaming with the colors of sunset, slowly darkening into the tranquility of dusk. Most of the smaller boys had resorted to either sleeping, lying around, making the occasional complaint about hunger, or hiding in the undergrowth and playing with each other in a strange calmness. The choir boys appeared to have more energy; some pairs of them were engaged in mock fights or in extensive conversations, making the occasional remark at each other. Piggy only watched on in a silent solitude, his face still emotionless when all activity stopped as the group of three emerged out of the foliage and came onto the rocks. All eyes were on them-both expectant to hear the news, and hoping to hear word of a food source despite it never being specified that they would look for one.

Ralph stepped forward into the crowd to speak first, driven by the responsibilities of being chief. He was aware of Piggy's reminiscent eyes on him, still wary after their earlier encounter, and the guilt from before came over him as he realized that he must have been alone all day, left with nothing to do. Nonetheless, he forced himself to clear his throat, and he spoke. "We went up to the top of a hill, and we saw everything," he began, "and this place is definitely an island. So now, for certain, we're on our own."

Murmurs swelled from the crowd, heads turning to look at each other in response to the chief's words, wondering what the prospects of the future would be like. Ralph put up his hand for silence, feeling a surge of newfound authority when they all quieted and looked at him again. "So we'll have some decisions to make. Like Jack said," the fair-haired boy continued, glancing at the ginger, "we'll need rules, and lots of them. We'll need to be our own society if we want to survive."

The silence of the group continued as Ralph walked over and pulled himself up onto the rock he was resting upon previously before, the conch still placed there like some sort of idolic object, dappled in the remaining rays of sunlight of day. Jack and Simon, in the meanwhile, remained in their places over at the edge, in between the scattered smaller boys and choir boys.

Ralph, now seated firmly on the rock, turned around and cradled the conch in his hands reverently, tracing his fingertips over its contours gently. He took one last look around the collection of boys before resuming his speech. "First of all, we're hungry. There's no way we can survive for long here without food. So-there's a lot of fruit nearby, and we can eat that. We don't have any other food source right now, so right now we'll have to deal with it."

Nods of approval ensued, giving Ralph more confidence in his decisions, although a large majority of the boys looked impatient for him to end his speech so they could eat instead. Taking this into account, he was struck with another idea-a great one, he thought-and he himself didn't care much for his own words at the moment when he was so hungry.

"We'll eat first, and after a little while I'll blow the conch again so we can keep making decisions. That'll be our-our assembly signal. So whenever I blow the conch, we'll all meet back here on the platform-nowhere else. No exceptions."

It appeared that this proclamation had pleased the pack even more, since without warning, he was met with whooping noises and the crunching of earth as many of the boys leapt off the platform, almost collectively. Jack and the choir had left virtually all at once, apparently perfectly willing to keep together. Ralph was slightly disconcerted by this reaction; he had not exactly anticipated for their response to be so intense and quick, but he quickly reminded himself of their boredom compared to the excitement of adventure he had experienced that day.

Only Piggy remained at the side of the rock he was sitting upon, and Simon's body was jerked as he was pushed by others desperate to get off the platform and search for food. His smile had faded, and all that was left was another one of his neutral, uncertain faces. He stood firmly, still facing Ralph, like he was waiting for further direction from the chief but receiving none. Ralph stared at him momentarily, before he was called back to attention by the voice of Piggy.

"Ralph-can you come into the jungle with me? I'm afraid of getting lost in there."

Feeling that this was a chance to make up for the humiliation he had caused his friend earlier that day, Ralph flashed another vague smile and agreed before turning back to the vivid boy who was now looking at the rocky ground underneath him. It would have been seen as a bit cruel, he decided, if he just let Simon stand around and eventually go off to find fruit all by himself.

"Simon, you come too," he said, in the tone of a half-question and half-statement. The dark-haired boy grinned enigmatically.

"Thank you."

His voice was still the same as it always had been-a little small and somewhat timid, a voice that one would expect to come out of someone that was so quiet as him. Ralph had to admit that the traits certainly painted Simon as quite an endearing person, and he didn't doubt that he could have possibly gotten into the choir on charm alone. Among the other choir members he was certainly the gentlest among them; although he tried to not be too judgemental on the choir, since after all, he had hardly seen too much of them at all, and he did have some fondness for Jack.

* * *

Before long, their fruit-hunting excursion was over, and Ralph and his two companions were settled back onto the platform along with the others. He took notice that Piggy seemed to have warmed up to him again, forgiving him for his previous act, and he seemed to be perfectly willing to make conversation with him again. Simon had also returned to his usual quiet self, although he seemed now to prefer sitting closer to Ralph than the rest of the choir; the fair-haired boy didn't blame him, since he didn't really merge well with them.

The rule-deciding went mostly as he expected. Everyone spoke one at a time; whoever held the conch was allowed to speak; the hunters would look for food and keep up a signal fire in hopes of rescue, which would be kept on top of the mountain starting tomorrow; and they would build shelters on the beach out of wood tomorrow as well. Ralph was proud of the way things were going; it seemed as if things might turn out all right after all, and they'd be able to get home as safely as possible. By the time the meeting was over, however, darkness had already fallen and stars shimmered into existence in the blackening sky.

They'd made the mutual decision to sleep on the grass, as a group, underneath the shade of palm fronds. It was about the same temperature as sleeping on the sand, anyway; surprisingly, the night was much colder than Ralph had expected. His school sweater was already not doing too well of a job at keeping him warm, as the wind chilled him through the holes that had been made by the scratches from branches in its fabric. It seemed that this was a problem for some of the smaller boys as well, but they were huddled together in groups to generate warmth, and the choir boys always had their cloaks.

However, it was not strictly the cold that was causing him to shiver; this was the first time he had ever slept without any form of proper protection, more specifically from his parents or guardians. He was here, virtually all alone, just him and a crowd of unarmed boys, sleeping on an unknown island in an unknown ocean, a secret to the rest of the world. Faintly he tried to remember what it was like, back at home, back at the garden where the wild ponies would come over the garden wall and he would feed them the vegetables his mother was growing, or the apples that fell from the trees. If he could go back there now, and relinquish in its protective, idyllic warmth, then he would do anything to accomplish it. But all those thoughts and memories now served as oneiric recollections of what once was. Now, he must merely live in the dark and enshrouded present.

As he laid on the ground, shivering because of fear and cold and only managing to fall half-asleep, he became dimly aware of quiet rustling coming towards him in his direction. Absentmindedly, he rolled over onto his side, now facing the noise's direction. He hesitated before opening his eyes, a little unwilling to give up the prospects of sleep just yet.

When he did decide to open them, at first all he could see was the moonkissed darkness of the jungle's interior, but as his eyes adjusted to the light's tenebrosity, he was aware of a figure standing not too far from him, holding something even darker than the night itself. His eyes travelled further upwards to see who it was.

Simon's face peered down at him, eyes reflective in the moonlight. His expression was calm but concerned, watching him to see if he was awake for a few moments. When he was, he cautiously made his way between the plants, careful to not make a noise, and knelt down carefully beside him, still holding the dark object. Ralph stared at him, confused, unsure of what exactly he was doing. Seeing that it appeared Simon was too afraid to speak first, he decided to start with a simple question.

"What are you doing?"

Simon held out the object, which he could now determine to be a cloak, and touched it to his arm. "I saw you were cold. Here, take my cloak-I don't need it."

Hesitant to take up his offer, Ralph sat up so the two would be at even eye level. He was unsure of what he had done to deserve such a proposal. "Why are you giving it to me? Don't you want it instead?"

Another enigmatic smile came to the choir boy's visage, an innocent but seemingly knowing one. "You talked to me, and you offered to let me come get food with you," he explained, pushing the cloak further into Ralph's grasp, "so you can have it. I don't need it."

Still confused but grateful for his generosity, Ralph grinned in return, a vague but genuine one. He held the cloak and wrapped it around himself, and this time it was his turn to give thanks. "Thank you."

Simon only shook his head, letting a quiet laugh escape past his lips. He stood as he did so, taking a couple steps back to reach his previous sleeping spot, underneath a mound of ferns, almost obscuring him from view entirely. He stopped for a moment, and looked at the fair-haired boy, and it was clear that there were thoughts flitting behind his eyes as if he were going to say more, but then he turned, crouched underneath the ferns, and curled up again, hidden in the depths of nature. If there was one thing about Simon to be said, then it was certainly that he did not act like any of the others at all. Sure, there was Piggy, and he was a solitary member; but his solitude was far different from that of Simon's. It was as if he knew something that Ralph didn't, while Piggy was merely excluded for his differences. It was such a strange phenomenon that Ralph was unsure if he could ever get a grasp on it.

For now, he decided to not question the strange ways of the smaller boy. He would have to accept the supposed fact that Simon was comfortable without his cloak, and he would have to sleep underneath it. Besides, he doubted that in these conditions he'd be able to find him anyway; since he was smaller than most of the other choir boys, he'd probably mistake one of the little ones for him and accidentally wake them. And he wasn't quite to putting up with anyone else at the moment, so he just laid back down on the fertile, soft earth and closed his eyes, trying to will himself to sleep.

Sometime or another he must have fallen into unconsciousness, although it certainly didn't feel like it. But when he opened his eyes the sky was blue again and the beach was bright, and sunlight was scattered through the fronds across his body. The cloak was still clenched tightly to his chest, suggesting the remnants of a nightmare or bloody recollection of home. Some of the pressures of oneiric calamities still rested on his shoulders, but he forced himself to sit up similar to the night before, in order to fulfill the promises of yesterday's meeting.

Oddly, he noticed, as the day was set into motion, Jack was nowhere to be seen. He'd assumed at first that the redhead, what with his authoritative attitude, had gone off and searched for fruit on his own without alerting him or any of the other group members, but he gradually lost hope in this idea as the day progressed to the early afternoon. He tried to think of other ideas of what he could be occupied with-maybe he'd gotten stuck somewhere, or he was off swimming and he got distracted. Certainly the fruit idea was no longer an option, since there was still an abundance of it near the platform, and even more of the surplus was spread throughout various, ambiguous trees in the forest, so if one was on a serious hunt for it, they would come across at least _some_ form of fruit within minutes. So logically, there must be something that he was doing that was keeping him.

As he helped to build the fire on top of the mountain though, and they worked out who was to guard it that day, he wasn't so sure of if what he was doing was a good thing. If someone was deep in the forest, trained so intently on something that they couldn't even remember their job for the day, then what exactly could they be doing?

* * *

A small, black, furred body moved through the underbrush, in a search for fruits low to the ground, an easy treat. Its hooves pattered on the luscious earth beneath it, without a care in the world of any predators on the island. This was only because it was blissfully unaware of the sharp blue eyes trained on it, consumed by hunger.

The pig continued, casually lopping a fern aside to reach the berries that it secreted underneath. It ate ravenously and quickly, eager to get back to its den in the furthest reaches of the pig-runs. The red-headed owner of the blue eyes advanced silently through the plants surrounding him, baring his teeth as if trying to imitate a beast, perhaps, that would be preying upon the creature in front of it. In his hand was his one and only method of proper offense-a pocket knife, with a blade fine enough to at least cut through the hide of a swine. And for now, that was enough for him.

The pig finished devouring the berries, and turned its attention to more fruit, leaving its flesh vulnerable, out in the open. The redhead's nerves shook in anticipation, urging him forward with the beginnings of sensations he did not know were possible. He knew that, in this stage, should he try to control himself, he would be capable of it; but the blood rushing through him made him unwilling to do so. And so the grip on his blade tightened, his muscles tense and ready to rush over to the pig and stab into it. He'd impress the others; he'd impress Ralph; and he would impress himself. He would become capable of power that no one else on the island had, and then he would teach that power to his hunters, and they would survive.

The pig was backing out of the hole containing the fruit, prepared to leave. In the blink of an eye the redhead sprang forward, his blade ready, ready to be dripping with the blood of the creature, ready to carve the meat out of its body, and he was going to swing it into its flesh, and the blade was ready to pierce its skin-

But he couldn't do it.

The muscles of the arm holding the knife locked and froze in place. He could not force his hand to stab the swine's flesh, and as soon as the pig realized what was happening within a matter of mere moments, it gave a high-pitched squeal and scurried off, deep into the jungle, never to be seen again. And as it did, the muscles were still, like they were suspended in disbelief and the conditioning of society.

Jack stood, warily, unsure of what exactly had claimed his body in those moments. He couldn't decide whether it was an excitingly new or disturbingly strange experience. If he had killed the pig, he could have pleased the crowd with meat; but now that he had not, it meant that he had been out in the forest for hours, accomplishing nothing. He cocked a critical ear at the sounds around him, and became aware of very distant, faint chatter somewhere above him on the mountain. Perhaps he'd make an excuse of some sort to hide the fact that he'd been following and searching for a pig for the past several hours, something impressive to show for his time rather than something disappointing. Yes, that was what he would do.

After all, he was the great hunter Jack Merridew, and he would never fail in a hunt. Not admittedly, at least.

* * *

**Here's chapter 2! Although no one has read it as of now, still here's the second chapter. Again, any feedback at all is appreciated! This will probably pick up next chapter, where there will finally be some actual conflict. Thanks for reading and have a great day!**


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3: Singe Mark_

The pile of wood had grown to something big enough so that Ralph was sure that it would be able to sustain throughout the night. He'd never known how large one would have to make a fire, since he'd never have needed to up until this point. But even though he could accomplish that, there was one major roadblock that he needed to get out of the way; no one actually knew how to _start_ the fire. Sure, there was your everyday rub-two-sticks together trick, the typical one everyone knew as a rule of thumb. The problem was just that that didn't really seem to be working. It seemed like no matter who tried, no matter how much strength they used or the type of wood they used, fire was entirely absent from the equation. Ironic, Ralph thought, considering the heat.

That deeply worried him the more he thought about it-would all of this work, all of their hopes to be rescued, be spent in vain? He could only stare down at the pile of sticks and wonder, as he cradled the conch in his arms, and as the chatter of the other boys continued around him, equally unsure of what exactly to do. Ralph was unpleasantly surprised to find that Piggy didn't seem to be taking any action either, and so the two of them sat solemnly together, trying to think of what they could do. Simon, on the other hand, had gone off to get a drink from one of the streams they had discovered; although the fair-haired boy was somewhat fearful that he might disappear into the forest just as Jack had.

Speaking of the devil, just as Jack crossed Ralph's mind again he was met with a whooping call from the bushes, signifying his presence. The crowd around him seemed to not know what to do, as if they were unaware to the fact that it was just the choir leader and not some foreign beast. For a moment all that Ralph could see was a flash of red hair and pale freckles; and then the blue eyes and the torn white shirt came into view, and the devilish smirk on his face.

"Quite the entrance Jack Merridew makes," Piggy muttered beside Ralph, narrowing his eyes with an unknown, newfound criticism of his own.

Excited cheers rose from the audience for a moment as they came to realize who it was who had appeared, but Jack quickly quieted them, and eyed the crowd with enthusiasm.

"Everyone! I've been-I've been out in the forest!" he exclaimed, holding up his knife to demonstrate his ebullience, swinging it experimentally. "And I've found something! There are pigs on this island, pigs we can hunt and kill!"

"But did you get one-?"

"Pigs! D'you think they're dangerous-?"

"Where are they-!"

"Quiet!"

Ralph stood, one hand gripping the edge of his shirt tightly. He was furious, now, that was for certain. "Jack! What's more important, hunting the pigs or going home? We already have fruit!"

Never before had Ralph used hostility with such urgency before. It was only the second day of their unfortunate excursion, and he was being bombarded with so many new situations; so he was definitely unsure of how to deal with someone so equal to him, especially when that equal was Jack Merridew himself. So when the crowd watched the two of them expectantly, wondering what the verdict of the argument would be, Ralph tried to steel himself against the possibilities.

Jack's eyes narrowed, and his scrutiny returned, but nonetheless he seemed to have some empathy for him. Clearly there was something he knew that Ralph did not-the fair-haired boy did not know of the primal desire to stab that ran through his veins or the bloodlust he'd experienced right before he'd stopped himself from cutting into the tender, vulnerable flesh… He'd have to find a way to communicate it, that was all, and then Ralph would stop being so mad. To his left was a stick, and rather than using his knife, he used the branch as a sort of mock spear.

Ralph watched him, clearly unsure of what he was trying to do, his gaze trained on the redhead with the same confusion as the rest of the crowd. Aware of this, Jack experimentally jabbed the air in front of him with the branching end of the stick. He quickly flung himself into explanation as to prevent any negative reactions.

"I know that! But the fruit won't sustain us forever-we'll need meat. So the hunters will have something to hunt." He swung the stick again, and jabbed it into the ground, trying to replicate some of the raw emotion from earlier. "We'll sharpen these sticks into spears… and the hunters'll have a weapon to hunt them with…" But as soon as he'd tried, it was lost, and thus all possible explanations he could have had to convey that sensation were lost to him. He forced another thought into his mind in an attempt to continue the conversation and remain metaphorically atop Ralph. "Plus, you could've lit the fire yourselves. Don't see why you need me around to do it, chief."

Ralph cringed at the smirk that played itself across Jack's lips. It was the incessant mockery that always drew another round of laughter from the group, but as insufferable as it was he forced himself to hold his dignity and continue forward.

"It's your responsibility, as a leader, to be here when we do important things like this. You can't just run off into the forest by yourself like that."

Blue eyes scanned the boys with analysis. "Fine. We could've had the fire lit by now if you'd stop arguing."

"Fine."

"How do you wanna do it, then? Couldn't you have rubbed two sticks together?"

"Didn't work."

"Got any other ideas, chief?"

That was where Ralph was lost. All of this felt stupid. Like he was arguing for nothing at all.

"We can use your friend's glasses, then."

In a flash, Jack had advanced upon Piggy and snatched the glasses directly off his face in one fluid movement, almost as if it had been calculated perfectly. While his companion was in shock, Ralph could only stare, a bit dumbfounded, at the thief who had taken them, who met his gaze with another one of his victorious, agitating smiles.

"Suppose that since I'm leader of the fire-guards, I should light it, shouldn't I?"

He was met with a roar of approval and a blue glare.

"What! Give those back, Jack-!"

Jack, now without the stick in favor of the glasses, wasted no time in getting over to the massive heap of viridescent wood, and roughly angled the glasses under a patch of sunlight, cocking his head back and squinting to ensure that it was on the correct place. Various members of the group began to gather around him in anticipation.

"Ralph! Tell him to be careful with those, will you? I need those to see!"

Despite his better judgement, Ralph joined them, admittedly equally excited to witness the creation of the fire. He'd been especially proud of himself when he came up with the idea, after all, so why shouldn't he be? It was only logical. Piggy, still blind as a bat, simply remained sitting where he was, palsied by the fear of tripping or falling on accident.

Steadily, a wisp of smoke formed underneath the pressure of the sunlight filtered through the lens of the specs, causing a wave of excitement to ripple through the audience. And then, all at once, a tiny flame sprung from the brush, and that really set them off. Ralph had to admit that he shared their euphoria-there was something immensely great about fire, something he had never thought of before. It brought him a hope he didn't know how to describe. It reminded him, thankfully, that perhaps going home would not be such a hard of a task as he had originally perceived it to be.

In the cheering, he was faintly aware of a call.

"Stop that, you! You're all acting like a bunch of kids-it's just a fire!"

It appeared that Piggy's statement was lost, however, in the sea of unparalleled feverishness that failed to realize that the fire was advancing quickly on the remaining branches. Too quickly for that matter. Nonetheless, the crowd dispersed to the edges to witness the embers develop into flames, and the flames develop into smoke. Ralph was near the center of the ring, having returned close to his original place near Piggy, close enough so he could hear him if he called out.

"Ralph! Did you get my specs back?"

He turned his head to look at Piggy, still feebly holding the conch. In a strange and unknown reply, he only set the conch down next to his friend and stood straight again, keeping his eyes on the fire with satisfaction. It was consuming the wood, the flames licking up the leaves and blackening them and burning them to ash, and stripping bark from it as if it were nothing. A force not to be reckoned with, he was certain.

"Ralph! It's going to burn up!"

Suddenly filled with a sense of importance, Piggy took the conch from where Ralph had set it. He'd known for a while now that the latter was likely too enraptured with the creation of his own idea, so he'd just have to take matters into his own hands.

"I've got the conch."

Too tired from shouting previously, he'd said it in his normal voice-quiet and simple. He knew that the only reason he'd gotten the crowd's attention at the moment was simply because of the object in his hands, but he didn't care. They'd listen to him now, and for right now that was all he desired. He cleared his throat, and kept calm and uncaring under the perpetual stare.

"Listen, all of you. You're all acting like kids! Can't you see, what you've done? Didn't it feel wrong? For the flames to be creeping so fast? Now look!"

He gestured to the fire and smoke billowed through the air. Indeed, the flames were busy beginning to burn a second scar down the face of the mountain. Their nerves went cold as they realized what they had started. Piggy coughed.

"All of you are actin' like kids-and look at where it got us! I tried to tell you! But none of you would listen!"

Some listeners abandoned the speech and started to stomp on the fire out of desperation. Ralph joined in, shaking himself out of being frozen with the reminder that he was chief, and that he should do something about this. Sparks idled in the afternoon heat.

"I told you that it was going to burn up! But you never listen to me! All you'll ever do is listen to yourselves…!"

There was a coughing fit, and Ralph nearly bit to break blood on his bottom lip as a part on his left calf was singed by the growing flames. He glanced down and saw the darkening mark.

"I don't ask to be a leader like Ralph. I only just ask to have some respect… is that too much to ask? Too much to ask of the lot of you?"

Some of the other boys yelped in pain as well, suffering a similar fate to Ralph from the burns. His mind raced. As chief, what was he to do now? What did someone do when there was a fire and it was burning out of control and your friend was yelling over the smoke? He leapt across and down the mountain, to where he thought the flames had most recently advanced, and removed his school sweater in a rush to beat at the flames with urgency. They shrunk and died away after a couple futile moments, retreating backwards and into the crowd of others fighting and beating the fire. Some of the flames had reached other, smaller parts of the forest, but he couldn't worry about that for now.

"And the littluns! Where are they? Some of them are missing! It's only the second day and some of them are already missing! Where's the one with the mark on his face? The one that looks like a mulberry birthmark?"

The cheering died with the embers, and the lingering sparks faded and shimmered away into the midday sun. Ralph stared back up towards the top of the mountain, briefly meeting Jack's gaze, who was still in possession of Piggy's specs. For once, he looked a bit guilty. A strange look to cross his face. The other choir boys were scattered amongst the littluns, looking off into the depths of the forest like they expected someone to crawl out of it.

Now that he was entirely audible, Piggy repeated the cataclysmic phrase, quietly and with his lungs filled with smoke.

"Where's the one with the mark on his face?"

Ralph cast a look down at the ground, trying to understand what had happened. There had never been an event like that before-where he was almost powerless to stop the fire from spreading and infecting the whole forest, where he was almost powerless to stop the hopes of returning home from burning their temporary home… He tried to savor the feeling in his mind, not because he had wanted to relish in the experience at all; but rather, because he wanted to have something like that never happen again.

No one spoke, and so the fair-haired boy decided to himself.

"Well…"

He lost the will to continue once he realized he had no explanation. Jack tried to pick it up for him.

"Probably off somewhere."

Inspired by this statement, Ralph looked up again, a wistful look upon his face as he tried to show his appreciation.

"Yeah. They must be off playing somewhere."

Roger nodded in approval, among some of the various other choir boys and the twins. Ralph was almost surprised to see such a reaction from him, since he'd achieved the feat of somehow being quieter than Simon up to this point. He looked towards Piggy in vain to try and see his acceptance of the claim, but he only stared in horror at the new scar in the mountain, still blind. He hurriedly thought of something.

"I need Piggy's specs."

With hesitance, Jack walked down the small slope to meet Ralph, and silently passed the glasses to him. He observed the lenses for a moment, and took note that one of them had been quite scratched, almost to the point of breaking. Too caught up in the consequences of their actions to process what Piggy's reaction would be, he himself went up the slant and put the specs back into his companion's hand, his head bowed once more.

There was no thanks given to Ralph as the glasses were slid back into place, and no reaction when Piggy realized they were scratched and he was left with one measly good eye. And so, there was no apology to be expected of anyone. Jack probably wouldn't have given one even if he'd asked, anyway. He would never listen to him. It was just a futile request.

"Let's relight it later and go down to the beach."

Ralph had said the words before his mind could fully process them, but he found himself agreeing with the subconscious command. Others gave their approval, and the littluns, still blissfully unaware of what had just happened, trotted down the jungle rocks and towards the water. They could only wonder where their friend had gone, and when he would come back.

The choir boys stayed put, awaiting a command input from their incapacitated leader, who was still staring intensely at the grassy ground below him. He shuddered as he came back to his senses and recognized his responsibilities, and he snapped to reality.

"We're going to go make those spears now."

Ralph, still dumbstruck, nodded dimly.

"Okay."

He would have protested if he was in his right frame of mind then, but all he could do was agree. He stared after the hunters as they left, in a tangled group, and they were off into the forest without another word at all. Ralph decided to take after them in the opposite direction, and head down to the stream to soak his singe mark, now that the pain was settling in. He'd have to get it properly treated when he got back home. He'd never been burned before, so he gave in to the itch of the mark and scratched it, quickly regretting his decision when that only caused it to flare up in more pain.

The more he walked, the more he became aware of someone following him, crunching through the plants and pushing past the creepers just as he was. He whirled around to meet them, and wasn't surprised to find the solemn face of Piggy, who was still holding the conch tight to his chest like he had to protect it. Ralph contemplated saying something to him for a moment, but decided that everything that needed to be said had already been said, and so he continued walking, allowing his companion to follow him every step of the way through the gloom.

* * *

Some of the others who had similar singe marks or burns to be accounted for had gathered in a group by the bathing pool, talking and laughing about things unrelated to the new, burned scar on the mountain, a companion for the scar with crushed trees and ruined plants, but Ralph had stuck with his decision to go to the stream by himself. He'd gotten his mind mostly off the incident, but still wasn't exactly up for talking. He felt it was his fault, somehow. It was his idea to light the fire, and all he wanted to do was get home, and he got caught up in the excitement of seeing the flames and the smoke. If he hadn't, maybe he'd have been able to stop the fire sooner and the more burned parts of the jungle, whose embers had finally died, would still be alive.

Piggy had gone to rest in the shade back on the platform. As far as Ralph could tell, he didn't blame him for what had happened on the mountain nor the damage to his specs-but it still made him wonder what exactly was going on in his head at the moment. He probably had blamed Jack for the incident, and honestly, Ralph blamed him for it as well. He had lighted the fire, after all, and he was the one who directly damaged the glasses in the first place. Ralph couldn't exactly feel any true anger towards him, though. He was still helpful, and despite his somewhat worrying obsession with the spears and the pig, he was a leader nonetheless, and the fair-haired boy still respected him as his compeer.

"Where'd you get that?"

He looked up instantly to meet the brown eyes of Simon, and instantaneously remembered that he had not been around for the fire incident-in fact, he had been nowhere to be seen for the past several hours or so. But there was no possible way that he could have gone this long without even hearing a whisper about the event.

"Didn't you hear about the-?"

Simon nodded, and Ralph winced. "I know."

They sat across from each other, Ralph almost painfully aware of the new wave of guilt that washed over him. Somehow admitting it to another person that wasn't even there to see it was all the more hurtful, and the silence made the scenario even more uncomfortable.

"You know, my… my father once got burned," Simon continued, trying to ease the tension. Ralph bit his teeth together briefly, and played into the conversation.

"Really? Well, it's not a burn, I think. Just got… singed."

"They're similar, though. A singe mark is not as hard to treat as a burn. So you'll be okay."

He was given a condoling smile, one that Ralph felt comforted by. He smiled back, vaguely, still a bit bothered, and went to scratch at the mark again, but stopped himself hesitantly once he recalled that it made the pain worse. He merely rested his hand on his knee, gripping and releasing the thorn-scratched skin absentmindedly, unsure of what else to do with it. He glanced back up towards the mountain, a silent reminder to him that he needed to relight the fire in case any vessels came past the island that night. Although he was still hopeful about the idea of rescue, he was doubtful that one would come so soon after they had crashed there.

Taking note of his suggestion, Simon let his smile turn to his neutral expression. "I'll go relight the fire with you. Really, I don't mind."

Somewhat shocked by the offer, especially coming from someone such as Simon, Ralph's gaze snapped back to his. "Are you sure? I thought that-"

"It's okay. Let's go relight the fire."

Simon rose to stand, and patiently waited for Ralph to remove his leg from the water. He cringed at the heat coming into contact with his injury again, but shook it off, knowing that he would have to climb all the way up the mountain like this for the better.

"We'll get Sam and Eric to guard it. Even though they aren't hunters. Two people is better than one, I think, especially for the first night."

The dark-haired boy nodded in agreement, brushing some spare plant matter off the sleeve of his somewhat tattered, white shirt, uncovered by the cloak he wore before. Clearly, the cloaks and black caps were of no use to the members of the choir now; the symbols of their status were now hindrances to them, intensifiers of the heat that had originally threatened to snipe them down with heatstroke. Some of them seem to have discarded them with disdain, while others simply saw no usage for them anymore, aside for mock blankets from the first night.

"And we'll get Piggy to come with us. Don't think he'd like having his glasses taken for a second time."

Another black-haired nod, and Ralph looked down towards the beach, still shimmering with brilliance even after the day's tragedy. It was still beautiful, still the same, regardless of whatever happened to it. It reminded him vaguely of a pretty home, a perfect place to relax and sleep in the shade. It was an ideal location to build the huts that had been suggested earlier in last night's meeting for certain. Today had been the day that they decided they would begin construction on them, but the day had been less productive than expected. Tomorrow for sure. Tomorrow the shelters would take form, and they would have a safe place to sleep. The fire would be lit and everything would be fine again.

Besides, Ralph felt comforted in the presence of Simon anyway, so that further assured him that there was nothing to worry about. He would just have to forget that all of this happened, and everything would be fine again. No more problems from here on out.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4: Shelters Against a Beast_

It had been a while since the fire on the mountain. Ralph had lost count of the days at this point, although he'd been trying to make estimates for a while now. Their skin had been browned by the mercilessness of the sun, most of their backs and shoulders beginning to redden with the marks of sunburn, making for the great discovery of the bathing pool and the frequent usage of it. Most of them had gotten sick, at this point, of the taste of fruit; Ralph tried to not think too much about it or else he knew that he would start to crave something else as well, and he'd reminded all of them that they just had to try and make do with what the island naturally provided them. They'd separated themselves into two general groups-the littluns (populated by the younger boys, and it seemed that Piggy's nickname for them had caught on) and the biguns (everyone else, although there was a strange, smaller part of the group populated by Simon). They'd gotten used to the swing of day to night; from the unending, heated daylight to the cooled heat of the dark. In retrospect, he should have been thankful for the temperature of the first night-he would do anything to sleep in those conditions again, especially considering that the shelters had not been built yet. And that irked him to no end.

It seemed so long ago that he swore to himself that they would begin construction on the shelters and finally have a safe and cooler place to sleep. He was beginning to tire of having to sleep underneath ferns or on grass in the allocated location under the palm fronds. He'd forgotten what a normal, comfortable, and dry bed felt like at this point, so to him it seemed like sleeping in a shoddy shelter was the next best possible thing. He'd tried to convey this to the others-to Jack, especially, since he seemed like one of the most useful people to have around while building the shelters, due to his apparent strength-but they would only listen for a little while before returning to their own habits, and playing as they pleased. Jack had developed an obsession with the pigs, and nearly every day he would set out into the forest alone. He could rely on Piggy to support him, but his ass-mar still got in the way of him helping Ralph construct the shelters on a consistent basis.

_Sucks to his ass-mar._

In all of this, however, there was at least _one_ person who persisted to help him in the physical aspect. Of course, it was Simon, who went against all connotations of his smaller appearance and proved to be the most helpful, and Ralph was very thankful for that. Although there was yet another enigma surrounding him-his frequent disappearances were quite worrying at times. Sometimes it would be only an hour; other times it would go on all afternoon, or on one occasion Ralph had thought that he may have even wandered off into the night. Despite all this, though, he was still eager to give him his hand in work, and the blonde was grateful for the ounce of help despite him wishing that others would do the same-such as, again, Jack and his hunters. Although with Jack, despite how much he would have liked his help and he liked to have him around at times, they very likely would have suffered arguments. But still, with Simon it was a tranquil experience-there was only the occasional suggestion on what to improve upon or the even rarer compliment on "how good it looked". Ralph knew somewhere in his subconscious that what they were trying to create was not good at all, but he still appreciated the flattery.

In all honesty, Simon's contributions to the shelter were much more skillful and well thought-out than Ralph's. His fingers were thinner and smaller than his, providing him more dexterity in intertwining the creepers and sticks together. It was similarly impressive that he could work faster than him as well-though he supposed that that just had to do with Ralph's unfortunate clumsiness. The branches on his end would come undone every now and then, and most times he'd have to start over again. Simon would only chuckle quietly at this; not in an offending or mocking manner, just playfully. He didn't mind that, only his own frustrations got to him. Although frankly, there were quite a lot of those.

They'd been able to accomplish a mere one shelter, but that had broken apart with a gust of wind that had come in the night, and that morning Ralph was _very_ displeased to find that all of his and Simon's hard work had gone to waste with just one push of the force of nature. Piggy had advised that they build the next one and repair the old one later, and so that was where they were now. Just like with everything else, he couldn't have accurately told anyone just how long he had been working on this shelter with him-he estimated it was only two days, but it could have been a lot longer than that. He no longer troubled himself with keeping track of time. There was only doing things. If there was only doing things, then he didn't have to worry about how long he'd been away from home, or how long people had been worrying about him.

"Bloody hell," he cursed under his breath, fumbling awkwardly with a part that had come loose, driven uncareful by frustration. As usual, there came a chuckle from the opposite side of him, and he smiled playfully, although at the moment he was too focused to give a proper reply.

"You're doing good," came the next compliment. "It just takes some time."

"I guess," he shrugged, satisfyingly finishing one of the segments of the branch. "It's coming along, a little bit." He held the branches together with one hand and took the other one away to push yellow bangs out of his eyes, irritated. It was a problem that plagued all of them-most of them now possessed shocks of long hair that had begun to hang in their faces and very annoyingly block out some of their vision. Aside for Piggy; it seemed that he was free from this issue, admittedly sparking some envy in Ralph, but he supposed that it was better to have hair hanging in your face than only being able to see with one eye.

The general base of the shelter had been mostly established at this point, and were two semicircles opposite to each other had been formed. They weren't quite connected yet, but for once it actually looked like there was some halfway decent craftsmanship going on. Objectively, that is. If one considered a couple of large branches tangled together that was broken in places, stuffed with mud from the stream to keep it all in one piece to be halfway decent craftsmanship, then Ralph supposed that it was what it was.

He moved on to the next set of branches, painfully aware of the heat beating down on his bare back. Wearing his school sweater and undershirt had proved to be too uncomfortable for him, so he had left them under a cluster of ferns near the shady spot underneath their sleeping area. A part of him wished that he had continued to wear them, however, since he could almost feel every part of the sunburn process redden and strip lengths of his skin as he bathed in the sun. By now he'd learned that the bathing pool was one of the best places to soothe his aching skin, but even then it seemed to be to no avail at times.

"We should take a break soon," he mumbled, more to himself than anything. He wanted desperately to get the shelters done as soon as possible, but he felt his back begin to sting again, a sure sign that it was time for a rest in the water.

"The others might help for a little bit if we just ask." An innocent suggestion.

"They're too focused on hunting."

Only silence followed, like he'd said something bad. By this point Ralph had come to the conclusion that Simon absolutely did _not_ agree with Jack's strange, growing obsession with hunting the pigs. He'd never said anything outright, but when the matter of hunting was brought about he would either disappear off to his unknown place in the forest, or he would go completely silent. It was almost like he knew something that Ralph did not-and in fact, that seemed to be about quite a few things, especially coming into light with the matter of the pigs. He didn't know whether to be glad that he could try to protect them from some foreboding danger or unnerved that there was something of a horrible premonition lurking around that he didn't wish to discuss.

He sighed as the branch he was working on came undone with a slip of his fingers, but this time Simon gave no reaction, seemingly still disturbed by the silence that followed Ralph's statement. The blonde had considered asking him what exactly was wrong with him, but decided against it whenever he came close to doing so; it just didn't feel right. Like he would know something that he wasn't supposed to.

Just as he was about to finish rewrapping the branch, it came undone once more after he was startled by a smaller hand on his shoulder, and he whipped his head around to see one of the littluns, who was red-eyed and looked definitely as if he had been crying recently. With a sigh at the loss of his work but the reminder that he had responsibilities in taking care of the littluns, he turned around fully and stood up to meet him.

"U-uh… Ralph, I have… I have something to tell the, um… I have something to tell you."

His voice was a lot more timid than Simon's, conveying actual, genuine fear, intriguing Ralph as to what his concern was. He nodded encouragingly, his face neutral in interest. Simon continued to work behind him, and he wasn't sure if he was still focused on his work or listening to the littlun as well.

"Well… there's… there's a, uh… there's a beastie out in the jungle."

That wasn't what he had been expecting. He'd never felt particularly nervous in the jungle before, but recently he had to admit that he'd started getting the feeling that there was another presence there. Something inhuman, or perhaps something that simply wasn't human and was just an animal. He was unsure of what the feeling of unease pointed more towards, and he didn't know if he ever wanted to find out.

"A beastie?"

"Y-yes… it's in the dark. In the trees… it's in there. Me and my friends have seen it. It's like a snake-thing…"

Ralph sighed through his nose, partly because he was trying to think of what to do and partly because he didn't like his work being interrupted. Perhaps there was a beast, perhaps there was not. He'd have to call a meeting about this and see what the others thought. This was the first he'd heard of the beast, so he just had to be sure.

"We'll call a meeting about that."

* * *

There had been no activity in this part of the forest, as far as he could tell. The redhead had been keeping a careful eye on this section, frequenting it multiple times every day if he was especially impatient for something to pass by. However, his desire for an animal to appear was not strictly his only reason for appearing so often; it was also the fact that light was scarce here, soothing the skin on his back and shoulders. Most of the pale freckles he'd once had had since deepened into a mass of dark ones, coating the more hardened parts of his skin in patches of cedar and umber. The freckles on his thighs were only protected by a pair of tattered shorts, the only thing he bothered to wear at this point since he found other clothing to increase discomfort under the tropical heat.

There was, also, his spear and knife, the only other objects he brought along with him on his excursions to the pig-runs in vain hopes of finding a pig and bringing himself to kill it. He was more certain that he would be able to, now, since he had been so instinctually driven to do so every time the thought crossed his mind. Which was, of course, often. This newfound confidence had led to him sharpening them as much as possible, even if they already were sharpened to the point of cutting through materials without much issue, like gliding scissors through paper. Although that comparison meant little to him now, what with its connotations of the world he formerly belonged to.

As he moved lithely through the underbrush, in the pig-run he had learned to be a domain of his own, he halted immediately as he thought something in his range shifted. He'd been more attuned to this environment. He tried to familiarize himself with every last detail. When something was moved, he wanted to know what it was that was moved-and more importantly, _what_ had moved it. He knew for a fact that next to no one at all went through this part of the jungle aside for him, so logically one of the only things that could have moved it was an animal. This place brought out something in him that he didn't know he had. The primal instinct to hunt and kill was brutally awakened whenever he set foot here, and he loved it. But there was also the sense of unease present whenever he moved through the darkness, something he couldn't quite place but knew was there. It reminded him of an instinctual, evolutionary fear that perhaps humans had acquired over their long existences. A fear that was not learned. A fear that might have related to something greater than an animal.

He pushed the bangs belonging to a mop of rusty curls out of his eyes so he could focus on the environment with more ease. His eyes were accustomed to the floral darkness, but like most others who had suffered the curse of the long hair, his vision was hindered. He needed to be able to see his prey, he needed to be able to see their footprints and see where they had most recently been, so he would know to come earlier next time. Every time he told himself that next time he would catch one. That next time had not come yet. But it would. He would make sure it did.

Something shifted in the undergrowth and without thinking, his grip tightened. He sniffed the air, trying to get a location for the creature, and sniffed again once he descended deeper into the ferns and creepers. He tried to move as quietly as he could, serving as an eerie presence in the vastness of the forest. It must have heard him, though, because then the shifting sounded again and it moved to another location.

He advanced onwards. _This time. This time._

He was close. He could see vulnerable, pale rouge flesh just a few plants away from him. He was going to stab it. So he leapt, to ensure it wouldn't get away, and brought his knife down, and he could hear a squeal as he was sure the blade cut through some of the hide-!

It was gone.

His prey was gone just as soon as it had left, and he was near seething. _This time. This time! But it wasn't this time!_

Now what would he impress the others with? Now what would he do? Now what would he feast upon? More fruit? More sickening, pale, bittersweet fruit? No. That is not what he would be eating for much longer. He would not let this opportunity slip away from him. All the pigs he encountered in this place from now on would fall to him, and he would be a real hunter.

A real one.

* * *

"Alright, then. Let him speak."

The sky was brimming with heat above the platform. At this time of day, patches of chilled, cooler surfaces were vestigial, proving themselves inferior to the bathing pool or the streams. It was unfortunate that the meeting area was not located by those places, but it wasn't like it could be changed now. Although Ralph had noticed that one minor thing had changed-or, at least he thought of it as minor-and that was that Simon had relocated his place to be much closer to the chief, although he thought that it was likely due to his newfound estrangement from the hunters.

The boy who was in possession of the conch at the moment was the same one that Ralph had spoken to earlier that day, an expression of nervousness upon his face in front of a more judgemental crowd than he had ever been in front of before. He was given some sort of confidence from Ralph's permission, and he held the glistening conch with a vice grip.

"I heard about it from one of my friends…" he began uncomfortably, eyes flickering between the various stern expressions of the crowd around him. "The kid with the mulberry birthmark. I didn't know his name."

There was a general upheaval of discomfort that caused some of them to shift in uneasiness, and some of them grimaced. The littlun, confused as to the truth of the circumstances, teared up slightly in bewilderment and continued after a momentary pause.

"We were playing in the forest when the beastie was there… we couldn't see right, but its shadow was huge… like a… a… be-he-moth."

A murmur of chatter arose, both stemming from confusion and fear at the news. As expected, Ralph witnessed the narrowing of Jack's eyes in suspicion, and without even breaking thought, the redhead held out his hands for the conch expectantly. And seeing that his time was up, the littlun quickly shoved the conch over to him and slowly backed off into the inner edges of the crowd.

The lead hunter stood and spoke with the authority he'd always carried. "If there is a beast in the forest," he began, and suddenly, his eyes flashed with wickedness, "then we will kill it. But I've spent time in the forest alone for hours. I've never seen anything strange. Except for…" The look in his eyes faded back to normal. "Well, I suppose there have been some times when I felt something was there."

The previous mumbles swelled, stronger this time and edged with a more powerful concern. Ralph himself was now unsure of the possibilities of there being a beast or not. Beside him, Piggy only pushed up the scratched specs further up onto his face, and it became clear to the blonde that he also had something to say about this. Simon was still gazing silently at the whole event, the quietness intensified by the mere mention of murderous intentions.

One of the hunters, a dark-haired one that Ralph recognized as Maurice, requested the conch in a similar gesture to Jack's, and naturally it was given to him. He'd seen him and Jack accompany each other on excursions out into the forest or to the bathing pool, usually to discuss more useless hunting tactics. Often they were also seen with another one of Jack's closest companions, Roger, and even now he was unsure of why that boy always seemed to have a lour on his face or even why he never seemed to speak to anyone, aside for a few exceptions.

"It's been the same for me. Sometimes I can feel something else there. But I've never seen anything…"

Some of the hunters nodded in approval, signifying that they had felt the same. As the controversy continued, somehow the conch fell into Piggy's hands.

"Now wait just a minute! I didn't vote for no beastie! You all are just being a bunch of kids. There's nothing out there in that jungle as far as I'm concerned!"

An indistinguishable voice spoke. "Except for a lot of pigs. And creepers." That seemed to give the bespectacled boy an idea.

"Exactly! There must just have been a boar or something, or you might have taken one of the creepers for a monster by mistake. Or one of you could have been followed by another kid without noticing. There's a lot of things it could be. Can't you have any sense?"

Apparently the answer to that was no, because now it seemed that despite the original questioning, most of them were coming to grips with the beast's existence. The conch was passed around to various individuals who had nothing to say, until it reached someone who did.

Simon gripped the edges of the conches' interior, tracing them with his fingers gently. His mop of coarse, black hair dangled in front of his eyes-not painting him as a malicious or foreboding individual, but one that seemed almost afraid.

"I don't think there's a beast. What if it's only us?"

His theory was certainly not a hit with the crowd, the tone in the chatter changing to that of disagreement. Ralph was teetering on the edges between logic and the wild depths of assumptions and theories. He thought it over for a moment; if Simon didn't believe in the beast despite all of his solitary ventures in the forest, then perhaps there was some validity to the beast being a fabrication. But then the senseless fear overtook him, the survivalist terror experienced when a nearby predator is present, and his mind forced him to disagree with Simon as well. Although his prospect was… scary.

Simon looked to Ralph, as if trying to get some agreeance out of his friend, and his eyes flickered to Piggy briefly; however, he already knew that the latter would hopefully end up agreeing that there was no beast after all. Despite the extreme lack of need for validation for Simon, Ralph just felt that he was somehow obligated to make some sort of accommodation in his inevitable response. He furrowed his brow as the smaller boy handed the glimmering conch to him, and scratched at the interior's edges in a similar way that Simon had.

Eventually, he decided on something, and pushing back the bangs from his eyes, he gave a vague frown and presented his conclusion. "If there is a beast, we will try to corner it. It won't hurt us. But until we have solid proof of it, there's nothing to be afraid of."

He didn't really understand why, but he looked to Simon for his own validation, and he was relieved when he was met with a kind, gentle smile. But this moment of respite from the controversy was broken, when he felt the conch being taken slowly and deliberately from his hands, due to the lack of attention on the blonde's part. However, he was slightly bewildered to find that it was Jack's action; the other boy regarded him with a strange, indiscernible look.

Once that he had the object, Jack quickly stepped backwards into the center of the circle, and the wild glint in his eyes flashed into existence again.

"But even if there's a beast, we can still hunt. The beast won't stop us."

He was met with a roar of approval and the deafening silence of Simon.

"And we'll hunt the pigs better. We'll… we'll paint our faces. So they won't see us." The wicked glint was stronger this time, and sharp eyes focused directly on Ralph, as if begging for his input. He only looked down at the ground, aware of the people next to him. He did not particularly agree with the hunting himself, so when put into question he would not attest to killing; but his broken stare stemmed more from the fact that Jack's gaze unnerved him.

"And we'll have tons of meat."

The reaction was just as expected, and without any proper dismissal, the gathered cheered and jumped off the platform, descending into the forest similar to as they had when they'd searched for food all those days ago.

And just like it was before, the three on and around the raised platform of rock were left stationary and alone.

"Still just a bunch of kids, Ralph."

Ralph nodded, not particularly approvingly since he knew that he'd been grouped into that lot from time to time, albeit regrettably. He only nodded to show understanding of his statement. In concern for the mention of hunting, the blonde turned to Simon at his side, who had his head hanging and black bangs obscuring his face. But suddenly, he sighed, and brought his visage back into view. His face looked sad and remorseful and blank all at the same time.

"I'm going to go to the stream," he said, and by his tone of voice Ralph knew that he would be going there alone. He nodded again, solemnly. He felt somehow disappointed that he couldn't follow him, though. He knew it well that Simon apparently needed long periods of time alone, but at the same time he wished that he could try to convince him that despite the negative connotations of the hunting, it would be alright.

With a silent sigh, Ralph watched Simon rise and walk off into the jungle, in the general direction of the stream. In turn, the blonde laid back on the platform and contemplated what he should do to bring things back together.

* * *

Inside the forest at this time, it looked almost deceivingly peaceful. The leaves swayed whenever the air stirred and the dapples of sunlight touched places on the ground, providing sunlight to lucky ferns and other flora that lived underneath the rays. Creepers created tangled mats of shade, guarding the small thickets throughout the place. Had the jungle been silent, perhaps it would not appear as eerie as it seemed at the moment. The hum of insects was a constant that followed someone no matter where they went. That had never particularly bothered Simon; insectoid droning were only a part of nature, and that was something he liked. It was only when the buzzing of flies intermixed with the sounds that he was bothered by it.

Flies in themselves were of little concern to him: rather, it was the implications that they brought along with them. He had never been one to fear death, but now just the thought of it was enough to draw out some sort of cold fear in him. Maybe it was because now, the probabilities of death, all alone with his peers on an island, seemed to be much more realistic than when he had been in the safe-bringing presences of other people. He feared even more that eventually, the action of killing an innocent creature would spiral downward into something much more vile and malicious. Something evil.

He tried to shake the dread from him as he took interest in one mat of creepers that was familiar to him, and he pushed it out of the way with care before quickly moving to the other side of it, and it lopped back into place.

In this alcove, hidden away from the rest of the world, he found a sense of security within the shade-chilled plants. Sitting down in the middle of the minuscule clearing and scratching absentmindedly at some of the grass blades underneath him, he closed his eyes and listened carefully to the humming around him, ensuring that the dreadful buzzing was not present. When he was sure of this fact after a few moments, he released an involuntary grip on the grass and thought.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5: In which we have some discussions_

Well, that didn't go as well as he'd thought.

Whatever attempt he'd made to assure the others and himself that the beast was only a tempting fear was long gone to them now. He supposed that he should really have seen this coming; not even he had believed his own argument all that time ago. Although, he'd just hoped that it was convincing enough. Guess not. For most of them, at least.

Simon seemed to have proved himself to be the only exception to the unrealistic fear, and it was an enigma to the blonde as to how he could keep such confident composure in a crowd of people who were certain they were going to be attacked at any moment. As he had begun to suspect when the matters of the beast were brought up, it seemed to have fallen into a similar uncanny valley, the category that was occupied both by it and the hunting. He'd begun to understand why he was seemingly so afraid of killing-he had to admit that it was quite unnerving as their obsession developed, but he still couldn't understand why the fear had developed so early on, when it seemed there was nothing to worry about. He'd chalked it up to a serious softness for animals, although he wasn't certain that was the entire truth.

The fascination he had with the mysterious case had only expanded as the swing of day to night continued, although he knew deep within his soul that it was a question he could not bear to ask. It was not an askable question, simply because he knew that he was not ready to hear the answer. At times he believed these assumptions to silly, but there was always the social implications of hesitance that reminded him that they were not as inane as he thought. And of course, there was always the fact that it would be Simon himself he would be questioning-and then there was always the other thing. Something he couldn't quite place about him in particular, something that went beyond the mystery that surrounding him. Perhaps it was the intrigue. It was a relatively small feeling in comparison to everything else, and he didn't know quite what to make of it-so he tried to not think about it too much. Sometimes it would cross his mind in the middle of the night or while working on the seemingly unbuildable third shelter, but he did his best to concern himself with more survivalistic matters.

There was, also, the dreams that plagued him. Not really dreams, perhaps, despite their contents-but he could never shake the feeling that they were in fact nightmares, taunting him with the memories of home. The signal fire still fed him hope of rescue in the meantime, but it was nothing compared to the brief sense of safety he experienced while under the belief that he really was back in the garden, meeting the mares that came to peer over the low stone wall, and lying under the idyllic sun…

Then he was snapped awake, and came back to grips with the reality of abandonment. Although he wasn't completely alone, he reminded himself.

Of course, there was something among all of this to be happy about. Two of the three shelters were finished and relatively stable, although when the wind picked up he almost jolted, afraid that something would come crashing down on him at any second. But they never did. So he continued to sleep in the dying leaves he had placed on the ground to guard his sunburnt back against the grain underneath. It didn't really concern him who was in the shelter with him, as at the end of the day he was usually too exhausted to care. Although, admittedly, he did have some preferences, of course stemming from the friendships he had formed. Overall, though, he was just glad to not sleep in insect-infested grass anymore.

Now was one of the times where he was lying on the ground, enveloped in a dreary heat, contemplating when he would return to his place of birth and relish in societal safety once more. He went undisturbed on nights like these, where the only sounds were the occasional crying out from the littluns about similar nightmarish experiences and the incoherent screeches of avian creatures in the jungle. However, he was a little unnerved and curious to hear the sound of rustling somewhere within the shelter, and he opened his eyes as a precaution. There was a moment of his vision adjusting to the darkness, and another where there was nothing in his line of sight-but then he caught sight of a pair of friendly brown eyes peering down at him, accompanied by a vague smile. Instantaneously he recognized them, and at once he was bewildered.

"Sorry, Ralph. Were you asleep?"

He only shook his head, unwilling to break the silence he kept in the middle of the night. Although he was still perplexed as to why he would be spoken to at a time like this.

"Sorry. I couldn't sleep either. I want to talk to you about something. Come outside, please."

There was a severe lack of commandment in his voice, and yet the strongest implication that there was no possible way Ralph could deny his request. He figured that this probably was for the best, anyway, since maybe using more of his energy would finally ease him asleep.

Brushing the pale yellow bangs out of his eyes, his friend had already long left him alone among the others. In the darkness, he could recognize none of them-that was a bit odd to him, but he brushed it off as a simple trick of the dark and nothing more. He gave a quiet sigh and rose slightly, his back somewhat arched as he made his way out of the shoddy construct and onto the white sand on the beach.

At first he was hit with an uncertainty of where to go. He'd never looked too closely before, but the darkness covered the island like a blanket of void. He'd grown used to the commodity of a streetlight, always there to provide some illumination to the sheet of blackness that nightly covered the area, but it was peculiar for there to be nothing at all to break through. He sighed internally, knowing that it would be a long while until he returned to that place, and once again he thought of the garden, and the horses, and the domestic flowers-

"Come over here."

Reminded of his task, he turned in the direction of the voice and saw a silhouette standing not too far away from him, atop a grassy mat, in order to provide some hearing distance from the pair and the others. Complying, Ralph set quietly over to get closer, and stopped once they were about within three feet of each other. It felt strange to get too close to another person in this manner. After such a long time and the fear mongering he'd been put through, it just simply did not feel right to be in such close proximities, but he did not move for whatever reason. The smaller boy gave him a friendly smile before it faded into a neutral expression, one not so dissimilar from when he was reminded of the concept of hunting.

"I didn't mean to ask you at an odd time like this," Simon said, "but we're busy during the day, so I thought that now would be a good time."

Ralph only stared, still confused as to what he was talking about. "What?"

He almost expected for there to be another smile, but there was none. The neutral expression seemed to deepen into a slight frown.

"Do you believe in the beast?"

That was a question he was certainly not anticipating. He'd figured that it was obvious at this point, or at the very least to some extent-maybe not the last of his beliefs were present through implications, but certainly there was something that told the others that he reflected their fears. Maybe Simon was only asking to be sure. There were very few things to be sure of, anymore, so that must have been it. Although he was equally unsure of what his reply should be.

"Well…" he started, but it was nearly lost. "I don't know."

Simon nodded knowingly. It seemed that his answer was enough, and despite the words he'd understood. His slight frown shifted, almost unnoticeably, to a look of forlornness. Judging from the silence that followed Ralph's reply, he expected there to be no response and only a quiet, short trek back to the sleepless nights in the shelter. But instead, there was actually something that followed, for no reason he could discern.

"That's alright."

Then there was another short silence, but this time the neutral expression shifted. Now there was fear present, too, and Ralph wondered why that would be so. Although, he assumed that this newfound expression of fear had to do with Simon's unexplained dread.

"There is nothing out there, Ralph. There is nothing out there… except for something… something…"

He trailed off. His tone was unusual compared to what it had been before. Just like the new emotion in his expression, it too had changed to a tone of fear, but it seemed glazed and rushed, like he'd begun to lose some sort of footing in his words. As if he was panicked, perhaps. Ralph's eyes watched in anticipation, almost thinking that he was going to get the answer.

"What is out there?"

Simon looked away for the first time since the start of the conversation. His question had very much to do with Simon's innate fear, and although he felt obligated to ask, he still was guilty to do so.

"Something… something. It wants something. But it's not a beast. It's not something we can see. But it's out there…"

Confusedly, he asked another guilty question. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the beast isn't real. There is no beast, Ralph. There's something else out there, but it's not a physical being. I know that I'm just talking nonsense to you, but please, you have to believe me. There is no beast."

The panic in his tone was greater now, and it was even more so one that Ralph couldn't quite place. It was absolutely genuine, and suggested the connotations of a more intense dread that he was feeling at the moment. And he could say nothing in response; he could only let Simon respond for him, to his own plea.

"...Do you believe me?"

Ralph flickering his gaze away and swallowed uncomfortably. That was even more not what he was expecting to be asked. He wanted to say that yes, yes, he did believe him, but he couldn't. Because he was still afraid. He cursed himself for that fear. The inherent liking for Simon that had crossed his mind several times had returned in that moment, and at that time everything in him told him to agree. But he wouldn't lie to him. His response was just a double-edged sword, and an inevitable one at that. But Simon still waited, patiently and innocently, hopeful that he would indulge himself in his plight and all this could be forgotten, and things would go back to the way they were before, before the day of the meeting where the existence of a beast was called into question.

Ralph could only manage a shameful stare at the sand below him as he finally thought of a halfway decent reply. "I don't know." And instantaneously, he hurriedly thought of something else to say: "I'm sorry, Simon."

He expected something more than what he got. Maybe comforting reassurance or some sort of friendly nod, at least. But Simon only gazed at him sorrowfully, his expression sad and with hints of disappointment.

"That's okay. I understand." A momentary pause, and then he continued. "I'm afraid too."

That he knew. Maybe perhaps he would now be informed of the unspeakable fear that plagued his friend, albeit doubtedly.

"Don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Ralph's reply was not as thought-out as he would have liked it, but it still came out nonetheless. He didn't believe it himself, due to his unfortunate bestial fear, but he thought it to be true for Simon. The inherent liking urged him to provide the comfort for his friend he wished had been bestowed upon him. But Simon shook his head, knowingly.

"No… it's… bad. It's bad. Please, Ralph, don't you understand? What is going to happen?"

It seemed that his attempt at consolement had miserably failed. The remnants of the glazed panic Simon had been under before seemed to have returned in retaliation to his words, and apparently that meant that Ralph's statement, his attempt at consolement, was true for no one, not even Simon.

"What?"

Having been flung into his former ominous haze, Simon hurriedly but vaguely seemed to be trying to inform him of something he still couldn't understand. "What they're going to do… and we can't stop them. Because they're afraid, like the rest of us… like you and me… because that's just what they do… they fall off the edges of morality, and then… and then…" He trailed off, but when Ralph thought he wouldn't continue, he did just seconds later. "Then they'll… they don't like me, right? I'll be first… after what they did to him. When we were on the mountain. They want to do the same to us, Ralph… it wants to do to the same to us."

Suddenly exasperated, Simon cut himself off, now adorning a new expression of panic Ralph had never seen on someone before. He narrowed his eyes in unknowing sympathy. He had not the slightest idea of what he was talking about, but whatever it was definitely seemed to worry him _quite_ a bit. But what was that even supposed to _mean?_ What did _what _want to do to them? If one thing was for sure, whatever something wanted was certainly not good, if his panic was anything to say about it. It almost scared him, in a way, but he forced himself to push down those feelings in favor of his own fears. He sort of got a very minimal understanding of what was trying to be told to him, but it was like trying to connect puzzle pieces that were strewn all over a room. None of what he said made no sense, no matter how badly he wanted to be understood. Still, trying to console him further despite the failure he found in his last attempt, Ralph reached out and pat him gently on his upper forearm.

"It's okay. Please don't worry."

Grimacing, Simon nodded unconvincingly. "I'm sorry. I was just talking a whole lot of nonsense again." He looked down and the grimace faded. "I'm sorry. Don't pay any mind to me."

The brown eyes looked at him again tiredly, calmer now that he was able to vent his rather cryptic frustrations. Both of them knew, in different ways, that what had happened on their excursion out into the night was senseless, but it didn't seem like either of them really cared. As friends they just liked to spend time together-maybe this is what it was like to have a great friend, the fair boy thought. He'd had close friends like anyone else, sure, but he wasn't quite sure that he'd like to walk out in the middle of the night on a nocturnally dangerous beach to talk about something that may or may not exist.

With another small bout of silence, Simon stepped slowly to the side around Ralph and it was clear to him that the discussion was over. He was left to stand in wonder in the darkness, as the soft sound of footsteps on sand could be heard behind him. He was a little worried that the panic in Simon that had transpired was due to his own actions, but he reminded himself that he had nothing to do with whatever he was so afraid of.

Well, at least he hoped so.

Deducing from his descriptions of the people involved, it seemed that he was apparently a primary target. But from what? Or from _who?_ He theorized that, perhaps, Simon got worked up over Jack's violent tendencies, and maybe he'd thought that instead of hunting the pigs, maybe he would start to hunt something… else.

He dispelled the thought as he began to walk quietly back to the shelter himself. That was ridiculous. That was wrong. No one would ever do a thing like that. It's murder, that's what. They would murder no one, that was just wrong, he couldn't imagine such a thing being done.

Or maybe Simon had a reason to be afraid.

* * *

The next morning was not nearly as pleasant as he had hoped it to be. Ralph awoke only a little more rested than he felt the night before, but nonetheless he forced himself to pull it together and he tried to get himself to work on the final shelter again. But he had no partner.

He didn't know if last night's event had upset Simon or something like that, but he went at the usual time to start his work again, and he even waited for a while to see if he would come. But he didn't. He found himself quite disheartened at that; he wasn't trying to upset him. In fact, he wasn't really trying to upset anyone. He just didn't know what to do or say to something that bore such intensity as Simon's words from the night prior. What would he have said? What could he have said in response to the theory of something that did not properly exist, and yet it did, and supposedly it was some sort of looming threat? It seemed almost silly, in a way, like something he'd read in some sort of prophetical tale. Surely, those things did not truly exist, not in the real world.

He waited a little longer on the sand. Maybe Simon had gone off into the forest much earlier than expected, and he'd wandered off in the middle of the night after they'd talked. Maybe he went to go find something to eat. If the former was the case, it was unfortunately likely that he would not return until late in the afternoon, suddenly, as if he were never gone at all. But if it was the latter, then maybe he would be back soon…

He was somewhat startled by a rustle in the bushes behind him, but he didn't turn around yet. He knew that it wasn't his friend, somehow. So he only stood, in wait, and continued to stare forlornly at the sand.

"Hey, golden boy," a voice jeered behind him, and he finally turned around and was met with the person he'd actually expected. Although, for once, he was not with one of his hunters, creating more of an unexpected sight, despite the fact that he still retained the typical trait of him being armed with his spear.

"What?" The nickname had caught him admittedly off-guard.

The other only smirked and dismissed the question facetiously, and posed one of his own. "Where's your friend?"

"I don't know," Ralph replied, honestly. "But someone needs to help me with the shelter." He forced his gaze to burn into Jack's with the strongest implications he could possibly muster, and he knew for a fact that the other had full knowledge of exactly what he wanted. But it already seemed he had other plans in mind, and he played off the statement as though he had no idea what he meant.

"That's too bad. But hey, I have something to show you, until your good friend decides to show up. Good as in, he's in working condition." The hint of a snicker followed his statement, and the fair boy picked up on it immediately. A rather rude comment, he thought, and especially so considering the disadvantageous circumstances of the person in question, but he supposed that he should expect no less from what he'd come to learn about Jack.

His interest in what wanted to be shown to him was honestly a little high, but nonetheless he told himself to stand his ground. There was proper work to be done, and if no one else was going to do it, he would. "I can't. There's work to do."

"I know that, but would it really be so much to ask to leave for a couple of minutes? The world's not going to end anytime soon, you know."

Ralph diverted his gaze from Jack's, self-assured that there was no more reasoning to be made with him, but he still figured one last statement of disagreement wouldn't hurt. "No. I have to stay here."

"Bollocks to that! What's so important about the shelter?"

There were a lot of important things about the shelter. It would provide more space to sleep, and it would keep more of them safe. And it would keep more of them cooler during the nights, since they wouldn't be so close together. But there was also an important thing about the process of building the shelter, because he felt strongly that an apology was in order, somehow.

"Or what is so important about the person you're building the shelter with?"

Ralph looked back to meet his gaze, but now Jack's smirk was dangerous, and that perplexed him. He seemed to have a strange fascination with questioning him about this.

"Nothing. Fine, what do you want to show me?"

"It's out in the forest," Jack replied, almost hurriedly, and that spark in his eyes returned again at Ralph's indulgence in his request. "You'll see. I found them."

Well, looks like apparently everyone was being strangely ominous today. First ramblings about something that might exist and then something about _them_ in the forest. Although, as Jack turned and began to make his way to their destination without them, Ralph began to naturally assume that this had much to do with his odd swinish obsession. He didn't know why he, of all people, would be shown such things, considering the fact that he had little concerns with the world of hunting, but he guessed that he was still the chief and he would have to know about these things one way or another.

Still, as he caught up with the other, he wanted to ask if this perhaps had anything to do with the strange, invisible creature.

"Has Simon told you about something weird? Like something he's scared about."

As expected, he was met with a suppressed, deriding laugh. "No, he doesn't tell me anything. Seems like he doesn't even want to speak to me, but he sure seems to enjoy talking to you a whole lot." There was an aggressive huff, oddly not pointed at Ralph himself for once.

Ralph didn't really know what he was getting at. "What does that mean?"

"He's the only hunter that doesn't hunt. Like he's got a grudge against it. He wastes his time talking to you rather than doing the work he's supposed to." That was more of what Ralph expected, Simon being ridiculed for the fact that he apparently wanted absolutely nothing to do with hunting, and Ralph being somewhat insulted. He tried to pay them no mind. All he wanted out of this conversation was to see if the redhead knew _anything_ that could shed some more light on Simon's panicked ramblings.

"Well, whatever. He asked to talk to me yesterday, and he kept saying something, about how he was afraid of something in the forest that we can't see. Not the beast."

The redhead bared his teeth in a scornful chuckle. "Hah. He's just batty."

"No, he isn't," the fair boy retorted, suddenly feeling a surge of defensiveness, "he's my friend. I know he can be weird sometimes, but he's just afraid of-of a beast. One that we cannot see." He tried to word the last lie more carefully, since he had full knowledge that it was not true at all, but that was the least he could deduce from last night's ominous ramblings. Besides, what he had described seemed like some sort of monster anyway, so it was probably synonymous with the beast.

"Yeah, you can go on, insisting that your little friend is special. But that's besides the point. He's just batty, talking about something like that. It's impossible. Invisibility isn't real, Ralph."

As soon as the redhead had finished his scrutinous words, they had come to a considerably large, sylvan rock that Ralph had seen before, but never bothered to scale since he figured that what was on the other side was of little interest to him. But as he stared at the viridescent boulder, he quickly came to the realization that the redhead had already left him and had climbed it with ease. Forcing himself into action, he hurriedly followed in his footsteps, and landed on the other side of the obstacle to a part of the jungle that he actually had not seen before.

He kept the conversation and question concerning Simon in the back of his mind, as he recognized that they had reached the place Jack was trying to lead him to. Sunlight was not as scarce here as the rest of the forest, and there was a rather large and visible earthy ditch not too far away from them that appeared to be an ideal sight for some sort of den, as sunlight filtered past the ferns that shielded it and denoted it as a sunbathing spot for any animals that happened to be passing by. Animals, he thought, such as a pig. Of course. What should he have expected.

"There's a meadow past here. But this is where they hide," Jack explained, creeping forward past the leaves and edging towards the ditch. "I've been looking for this place for a long time. If we cornered just a couple here… we could have a feast. With meat." The ginger bared his teeth like some sort of beast himself, obviously starving for the scenario he described.

Ralph shook his head dismissively, unconcerned by this newfound place but undoubtedly a little excited at the prospect of eating something other than fruit, although he refused to admit it. "Why would you show _me_ this place though? I don't hunt."

"Maybe so, but you're the chief, aren't you, golden boy? Shouldn't you know about where your fellow little friends are? Even when they're out in places like this."

The statement was followed by another trademark smirk, and Ralph once again knew that the questions posed to him had more depth than what they appeared as. He didn't let the insult get to him, however. How was he supposed to know where people were when they wandered off into the forest by themselves, without any witnesses, and hid in there for hours? Or maybe the insult was intended to hurt him more because he _wanted_ to know where that hidden place was.

"Besides," the ginger continued, "as leaders, you and I are in charge of mapping out this whole island. Although it seems more like you'd just like to map out every grain of sand on the beach."

"Stop," Ralph cut in, growing sick of his derision. "Simon and I work because no one else will. Because this is all you do, is go out into places like this and hunt for pigs! What's so special about _them,_ anyway?"

"You wouldn't get it. I am working. I'm working to get us better food. Won't you appreciate that?"

"No! We have the fruit for a reason, Jack! We have to get other work done before we can do things like that! We have to get the last shelter done, and we have to work on getting water out to everyone, and keep the fire going! Don't you want to go home? Don't you want to get rescued?"

Jack narrowed his eyes in contempt. The last questions served as infallible inquiries to Ralph, things unable to be argued with. Yet his confidence in that broke a little when he still received a negative response.

"I don't know. If we go home…"

"If we go home, then we will be safe," Ralph angrily finished for him. "We can't spend the rest of our lives here. Like Piggy said. We might stay here till we die. But I'm trying not to think like that. If we have the fire, we might go home and be safe again."

The pale blue eyes narrowed further, as if trying their hardest to think of a point. "We might," he said after a moment of silence. "But if not… then… we will have to hunt the pigs. Don't you remember? Humans can't survive on fruit alone."

"I know that, but it's also a waste of energy. It's been so long and with all your attempts you haven't even caught a single pig!"

The smirk had returned. "I could say the same about you and your little third shelter."

As much as he tried to not let the statement irk him, Ralph was still highly irritated nonetheless. He turned to face the boulder with aggravation and walked noisily towards it, crunching the leaves underneath him with force, rousing some of the resting pigs in the ditch and causing some confused squeals and disoriented shuffling. "There's going to be a meeting about this. There's work to be done and no one is doing it."

Ralph reached the top of the stone, and sent one last unhappy glare back down at the redhead who only stared at him with some odd, unknown look on his face. It wasn't particularly happy, or sad, or angry, or it wasn't even the smirk that was usually upon his face; it was only another strange look he couldn't quite deduce, which seemed to have become a little commonplace these days.

"I'd expect better from you."

And yet again, Ralph's comment brought about the incorrect reaction, one that he was not looking for, and it came this time in the form of a vexatious smirk and another contempt statement.

"You'll see."

With that, he swung his legs over the top of the rock, clambered down it, and strode angrily back to the beach, his apparent place of residence.

* * *

**Well ouch, this is kind of late, but nonetheless here it is. I had a bit of writer's block, oops, so that hindered me a little, but nonetheless here it is. Hopefully we'll start getting into the good parts soon, but for now we have some _spooky_ foreshadowing. Don't know how long these updates are going to take from here on out, but don't worry, I said I would finish this and it shall be done, so even if it takes a while, don't worry about it.**


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6: Search_

The sun was beginning to come low into the sky, painting the sky in a warm red color and cool violets near the horizon. Ralph had been trying, for the past ten minutes now, to summon the will to call the meeting he had promised would ensue to Jack. But every time he was able to allow himself to move, he was struck with the overpowering drive to keep himself absolutely silent. It was like he was obligated to keep himself mute. Although he knew, for certain, that this stemmed from the guilt that had stockpiled in his system from the night prior, and from the fact that Simon was nowhere to be seen, even after the usual amount of time that he would be found missing.

He grinded his worn teeth in vague frustration. He felt that his fear to do this was stupid. Why would it matter, to him or everyone else, if one person wasn't present, if the person that was one of the exceptions to the meeting's purpose was not present? Maybe it didn't matter to the others, but it mattered to him. And that was for a vexatious reason he could not exactly distinguish, and under the bane of the sun, it only furthered his frustration and formed it into further restlessness. Ralph's mind wandered back to the taunts, from not too long ago. About the specialness he had apparently imbued to his friend. He did not know why that existed, either, or why he had been taunted about it, as if it were more than trivial that he was friends with someone else.

He cast a futile eye to the forest. Somewhere in there, pig hunting was happening, and someone else was in there, in wait of the event's end. He felt strangely untied to these situations however, as if they were not real. As if they were simply insignificant in this newfound world, a place without much drive or motivation to complete the tasks of life that were usually uphanded by those much older than himself. He suddenly felt, even if briefly, free of his responsibilities.

Then the weight returned in a sudden realization, if not an expectedly futile one.

_He is out there alone._

That was true. Simon was out there, alone in the woods, completely unarmed, and in the presence of a monster that Ralph had begun to truly accept the existence of. The thought frightened him, something deepset in his bones. He could be destroyed out there and no one might ever know, they might just think that he's gone off on his own and doesn't wish to be with them anymore… and even if there was no beast, his friend might be mistaken for prey. And that would certainly not end well for any of them.

He could hear the screaming of the littluns at the edges of his earshot, a further reminder of the fact that he was a person with responsibilities. Important ones. But maybe it was also his responsibility to try and ensure that no one died. People back at home would do that; a good leader would do that.

Exhaling through his teeth, he set the conch down one last time and made his way over to the treeline. It looked darker than usual, something that unsettled him, but he chalked that up to just having his eyes not quite adjusted to the darkness as of yet.

The interior of the forest was just the same; some obnoxiously vibrant flora at the entrance before it sloped into a thicket of undergrowth, which served as a sort of passage into other areas. He made note to work to clear that particular area out if they were to stay here for much longer. Which he hoped would not be the case, considering how things had been going so far...

Going down the slope, he descended into a screen of ivy which served as a sort of barrier between himself and the deeper undergrowth. On the other side the ground was much cooler than that exposed to the golden earth above, a respite that soothed some of the staled sunburns on his skin. But he paused for only a moment before continuing, tearing at the verdant earth to clear a path for himself. He moved urgently, feeling a sense of drive not dissimilar from something one might feel if they feared being late to a party. He thought it strange that he would make such a comparison, even out here, where none of those commodical comforts appeared.

He only wanted to go home.

His continuation into the lower earth turned colder still. It was becoming a chilly autumnal texture, and he did not like that. It was wrong, in a way, in a way did not know how to describe. None of this should have been this cold in the first place. A deceitful contrast to the heat he had been accustomed to.

A gelid crawl shivered along his back. This place was not right. It was not a dissimilar situation to the one from earlier today, only with its own twisted spin in that he was alone, crouched in the underbrush like a concealed animal.

The light here was strange. He could only describe it as a slipping twilight-moments that passed him by without his notice, a strange absence of anything or anyone where there were supposed to be other people. But there was not silence. There was still the insectoid humming, ever-present and eternal, a droning noise that had managed to infiltrate even his dreams of home at times. Maybe some of Simon's battiness was rubbing off on him. Maybe it had always been like this and it had just slipped his notice this entire time.

As if he were not supposed to move, he scratched the ferns off his body and stepped haphazardly over a ditch in his path, and he almost instantaneously recognized it to be the pig-run Jack had showed him earlier. There were no signs of disturbance in the small crevice underneath. They must have already been scared out of hiding.

He narrowed his eyes. Somewhere in the underbrush he could see a flash of dark hair, and he was excited at first; but then he caught sight of the second detail, the somewhat frighteningly pale skin-at least, in terms of what would be considered frighteningly pale at a place like this-and he concluded that his hopes were only faulty. Within an instant he could deduce the identity of the person in question; Roger. Even though he was Jack's friend, in truth that was not the individual he had been expecting-or rather, hoping-to see, but it was someone who he could see had some… versatile humanity.

Ralph's frustration increased and faded. For only a fleeting moment he thought he had found his friend, but instead he found only a hunter. Just his luck. Or maybe he would never find Simon at all? Was his warning a closer premonition than he had originally implied?

There was a rustling, not too distant in the trees. He froze for a second before continuing to move. He might've been mistaken for some sort of prey, like he thought Simon would have been, and he hoped to avoid that. He could only hope that the crashing in the ferns behind him was really a sound heading in a different direction, and not his.

That hope was proven incorrect once he felt something nearly slice against his shoulder-and he flinched as it punctured into the earth beside him, apparently missing by some hidden miracle.

He whipped his head around to face his attacker, but instead of being met with pale eyes as he was expecting, there were only dark ones, glistening with a morbid spark that was foreign to him, one that he could not quite deduce the intensity of.

His knuckles gripped so hard to the weapon that they were white, and dark bangs hung lowly in his face, which didn't seem to bother him very much but painfully made Ralph aware of his own yellow strands, thinned and made stringy by a lack of maintenance.

The other was suddenly overcome with some sort of strange reverence, shown by the widening of his eyes and the paces backwards he took. He said nothing, only clutched tightly to the makeshift weapon in his hands and dragged his fingers across it slowly.

"Sorry," he muttered, not like he was unapologetic-more like he was almost intimidated by Ralph's presence, which perplexed the fair boy. His eyes nervously flitted between the chief and some random location that he could not distinguish.

He wondered briefly about the true intentions of Roger. He had never once truly seen him carry out any explicit act of violence, but he'd always thought that he'd gone into that state while he was out of Ralph's vision, considering his relationship with Jack. He was certain that he was likely predatory somewhere on the inside, but fortunately that assumed aspect of him seemed to be not showing at the moment.

"What are you doing?"

There was no attempt to make a response or any sort of regard to what Ralph had said himself; only some awkward shuffling and a deeper lowering of the spear. It was almost like he was genuinely curious, although his tone would suggest otherwise.

"I'm looking for someone," the fair boy replied simply. It was truthful, but he wasn't feeling up to giving a full response at the time. He tried to regain his focus and gather his bearings for the area again, scanning over the tinted undergrowth and scratching at the dark earth to tear some of the floor-creepers away, which had, as usual, become a nuisance.

"Oh. I thought you were going to have a meeting."

"I was. But I have to do something first." He narrowed his eyes. Roger's curiosity certainly began to edge on his nerves; he had never seemed particularly inquisitive or even talkative for that matter. Although, perhaps Ralph was only paranoid, considering Roger's occupation… and also, considering his somewhat addled state due to his increasing nervousness that he wouldn't find Simon after all, maybe he was right to be a little frightened.

"We are hunting."

Ralph was almost relieved to hear about that particular subject again. Right. That was the reality of the situation. It was only hunting, not what Simon had implied what the hunters would do... The sudden encounter had snapped him out of the surrealistic attitude he'd possessed not too long ago.

"Maybe you shouldn't. You might hurt someone. Like the littluns. You'll just slice right through their shoulders."

He thought briefly of a bladed weapon gliding smoothly through bleeding flesh. A disturbing, macabre idea, made real by the fact that he'd come close to being in a similar state.

"But the pigs." Ralph turned away from his search in the growth to see that an unusual intensity had formed in Roger's eyes, not dissimilar from Jack's whenever he spoke about this subject, but it was also foreign. Something dangerous that remained unleashed for the time being. He narrowed his eyes in observance.

"There's nothing special about them," he replied, almost aggressively. "It seems that's all you hunters will ever talk about."

A momentary pause passed between them, and in that time Ralph turned back, casting a halfhearted glare. The glint in Roger's eyes had returned.

"But don't you want meat?"

Ralph froze. The temptation of meat arose once again, the temptation to feed the necessary desire for flesh. Humans could not survive on fruit alone, but he had to try, for if he didn't… well, he honestly didn't know what would happen if he ate some of the meat. It seemed harmless, although the idea of being the one to go through with the killing still disturbed him a little. There was just the perpetuating idea that consuming the meat was wrong in some way or fashion.

"No," he scowled, "it isn't right to eat the meat." The glint in Roger's eyes vanished.

"Oh," Roger mumbled, clearly made uncomfortable by his statement. Ralph turned his attention back to scouring more of the deeper part of the jungle, getting increasingly annoyed and being left to wonder why he wasn't being left alone yet. Although, he was lacking the right courage to ask the other boy directly as to exactly why he was being followed. "Why not?"

"Because," the fair boy scowled, "I've said it ten times and I'll say it again-we have the fruit to eat, and you'll never get to eat the meat in the first place if you hunters just mosey around as recklessly as you have been."

"But we need it." Ralph unnecessarily tore at some young ferns in an unknown frustration. He couldn't think of a reason as to why the hunters being so hellbent on a necessary resource was angering him so much.

"I know that! But we won't be here for much longer, I'm sure of it," he replied, his tone wavering a bit at the end at the reminder of home-and home meant fire. He'd almost forgotten about it in this whole mess, he'd almost forgotten about his top priority. That worried him greatly, but he tried to shake it off and focus. Before he came to a sudden thought: if the hunters were hunting, then who would be tending to the fire?

"Are Samneric looking after the fire?" he blurted, grazing his nails over some of the plants worriedly.

"Uh… yeah," Roger mumbled uneasily, and the fair boy heard him take a step back behind him. "Yeah… we wouldn't leave the fire… unattended." The uncertainness in his tone told him that the answer was no. He curled his fingers so tight around handfuls of grass in frustration that his knuckles turned white, but he managed to keep a controlled tone.

"If it isn't, then go tell them to guard it right now. Get someone to guard it. Because if no one's there no one will see us."

"I don't think that Jack-"

"We have to get home. Please go tell them."

There was a brief awkward shuffling behind him and the crunching of leaves and foliage, and Ralph stilled in wait of his answer.

"Okay, chief," he mumbled, strangely genuinely, and the fair boy was relieved finally to hear the shuffling of leaves behind him. He allowed the grass he gripped some respite from his grasp, although now it was mangled. That couldn't be helped.

Annoyed and somewhat mystified by the encounter-the latter more due to the way Roger had acted towards him, although that was probably just because he was the chief, after all-he resumed his work of proceeding deeper yet into the jungle.

It was a while after of covering more ground that he began to become nervous. He had explored a good part of it so long ago with Jack and Simon, but these sections were unfamiliar to him. The trees were thicker, but not impassable by any means, and the canopy still allowed snippets of the sky to peek through. White and pale yellow flowers grew among dark leaves, a certain rose-like type that he had not seen thus far, even with his occasional exploratory ventures. Ivy and moss grew thicker on the bark, and the grass was more untouched by the harshness of the sun here, making it much more comfortable to walk on rather than the dried blades that fringed the beaches.

_This is stupid,_ he suddenly thought, staring at the darkening sky. _Why would he even come this far?_

He reminded himself that he would need to go back as fast as possible and make sure that the fire was alight again, or else they'd just be stuck here until they died. The thought frightened him. Then again, the thought of losing someone also frightened him.

Then he remembered the beast again. He had been so foolish to head out here, so deep into the forest that no one would ever even find him, all alone, when he knew that there was probably a threat that could easily snap his throat-or worse-with ease. He had put himself at the very risk he believed his friend to be in. And the thought of something else-what if the beast had gotten to Simon before him, and he was simply too late? He shivered simply at the idea of someone he knew suddenly falling dead. It was almost incomprehensible. Of course, like everyone else, he had thought of the prospect of death before; it was inevitable that people died. But now, the idea of death, for someone to no longer exist… it seemed more real and terrifying than it ever had before, a terror which was furthered by the fact that it was a concept that surrounded one of his best friends at the moment.

He was frozen in the middle of the darkening forest as he contemplated if he should turn back and make sure that things were still stable, or if he should continue forward to confirm that his terror was unnecessary. He wished that this situation had never even happened in the first place. All he wanted was to go home and forget about all of this.

In a split decision, he decided to continue forward. He didn't feel particularly hungry, nor was he ready to deal with more of Jack's ridiculement. And he wanted more to know that no one had died under his leadership. What sort of leader would he be then?

He was not very much aware of where he was going as he descended a slope and continued into what may have been one of the deepest parts, where the white flowers grew in more abundance, since he was doing everything he could to ignore the pressing issue of the time. He didn't want to be alone in the darkness while he had absolutely no idea where he was-that just sounded like an absolute nightmare. So instead, he only told himself something to believe in-_You'll find him soon, soon, not too much longer. It will all be alright._

After trudging unbearably through the mats of creepers and intertwined foliage, he finally seemed to come to a place of noteworthiness. He had thrown himself off track with following where the white flowers grew, but only because he had assumed they held little importance to the task at hand. Instead, this place gave off more of a vibe that he was on the right track-there were tiny blue flowers here that grew in abundant clusters, intermixed with tropical leaves and shrubbery. The disturbed mats on the other side of the small clearing gave him hope that someone was here, and not too long ago; maybe, if he was lucky, they had only left a couple seconds prior to his arrival.

Hurriedly, he dashed across the clearing in desperation to see if someone was there. But when he looked through the mats and onto the other side-nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He ran a hand through his shock of gold to try and conceal some further frustration. What kind of game was this? A sick one? He felt like he was being messed with and he didn't know what he had done to deserve this. He just wanted to assure himself that everything was alright. Yet he had to be stuck here, chasing after someone he barely knew the location of, and all because he thought he had said some things he thought were the wrong thing to say at the time, and...

_But of course, Simon had to wander off into the forest again like the bat he is, _he internally growled, nearly cursing at himself for using the mocking name that had been attached to his friend. To vent his anger, he scratched at some loosening bark on the tree next to him, taking notice of the unfavorable condition of his nails. He would have to fix that when he got home.

In the midst of his venting, he nearly excused the sound of moving foliage behind him as another ambient sound, before he heard a voice call out to him.

"Ralph?"

He whipped his head around to face the other person, unawares to the fact that he must have looked a little crazed at this point in his search. At least it did not turn out fruitless, after all this. He recognized the tone of skin and the coarse black hair almost immediately, but could not bring himself to move. He felt like he needed to make sure it was really his friend, and not just another dead end.

"Sorry I wandered off. If I worried you, I didn't mean it. I'll help you more tomorrow…" the other boy murmured, averting his gaze to the ground when Ralph still gave no reply due to his own shock. "Sorry," he added in a mumble, still uncertain.

Ralph removed his hand from the tree to face him fully. "Simon, I have been looking everywhere for you," he said, in a mix of both his former frustration and relief, although his expression was still blank.

"O-oh," he stuttered in a bit of a startle, "I'm sorry. I must have upset you with what I said, didn't I?"

"Where did you go? I was going to call the meeting but then, I thought that maybe…" The fair boy trailed off, suddenly reminded to the fact that Simon did not believe in the beast like him. At the near mention of it though, the other boy's mysterious grin returned, and Ralph was glad to see that some things were still the same in spite of this whole thing.

"Please don't follow me next time. But that's all right, you've got nothing to worry about with me," he assured him. "I'll always come back."

With those last words, the smile seemed more forced, once again putting Ralph at unease despite him still being relieved to find his friend after searching for so long. He tried to play it off as his friend just trying to reassure him, but he couldn't help but feel the return of the fear that he had felt from the night prior…

"I won't," he replied, although he was unsure if he would completely follow up on that promise later. "But you didn't upset me… earlier. I'm sorry if I said something wrong."

"Something wrong?" Simon chuckled, the friendly smile still in place. "I don't think you've said anything wrong at all. I told you before, right? Don't pay any mind to what I said last night."

Ralph still remained unconvinced, but he felt like his time to ask questions was running out as fast as the daylight. "But what did you mean?"

He received an answer very similar to the last one. "Don't worry. We have more important things to do. So we should get back before it gets dark." He paused and the grin became more genuine. "Before something gets us."

"I guess you're right," the fair boy replied, finally smiling at this point. The joke didn't really land with him, due to his fear… but it was lighthearted, at least.

As they began to make their way back towards the beach, the seemingly last truly safe place that Ralph could think of, most of the trip was spent in silence, and whether that was from Ralph's uneasiness at the whole situation or something entirely different, he couldn't tell. But somewhere into it, Simon turned to him, the gentle smile that Ralph had become used to seeing from him still in place.

"Thank you for being my friend, Ralph," he said. The slight tone of sadness in his voice confused him as much as his words did.

"You're welcome, but we're still friends, aren't we?" the fair boy replied, suddenly fearing whether or not Simon actually would stop talking to him after this whole situation. He didn't want that at all. Piggy was always a good friend, he could recognize that; but without Simon, he would have no one to build the shelters with, or work with, or talk to in his spare time…

"Of course we are," Simon smiled, and Ralph flinched at the sensation of skin against his at first, mistaking it to be some sort of animal-but he was even more surprised to find Simon's fingers brushing against his. "I just wanted you to know that… no matter what happens, we will still be friends. I think that you are a nice person. I mean, _I_ might not have looked for me, if I got lost," he added, the ending more playful than the rest.

"Do you have something in mind that will happen?"

"Nothing in particular. I just don't want you to worry." Simon's hand retreated as soon as Ralph had begun to respond to his motions, trying to hold his hand in some way; but it seemed that he was rejected. "Let's keep going, then. That's all I wanted to tell you."

Ralph nodded, but at the end of this long day, he was still confused about everything. He didn't understand why Simon would deny everything he said last night when he seemed so panicked, he didn't understand why Jack seemed so obsessed with the friendship between himself and Simon; it seemed that he couldn't understand anyone today. At least Piggy could be predictable in his behavior, and there was a sense of order to it… but whatever was happening with everyone else, it just seemed like one big mystery he was incapable of solving, and not even one of his closest friends would tell him the answer.

Maybe he wasn't allowed to know for his wellbeing, though.

* * *

**Alright, well, finally got this done. It's been a while since I posted a new chapter, but this might be around how much time it takes at the moment due to school and finals coming up, and all that... But don't worry, this story isn't dead, it just takes me a while to write these things. **

**Hope you enjoyed though, and as always, any feedback is welcome.**


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